One, Two, Blah Blah

Straight coming to the point, One two three is NOT worth wasting your money in a multiplex but if you are a chiller party like yours truly and dont mind the single theater charm then this movie is a must watch!! (BTW I watched it thanx to the piracy, not much single theaters in Gurgaon). This movie is about three idiots named Lakshminarayan and the usual Priyadarshan type confusion that occurs. The plot ends here, yes there's nothing more to write about the plot instead the director Ashwini Dhir needs some mention. It seemed the final output was far from what he wanted to show. I believe it because of the fact that this is the same man who gave us Office Office. The glimpses of such artist is seen in the scenes between Manoj Tiwari's gang and Anna Shetty. Special mention to ever underrated Sanjay Mishra (As Pintos) who does a Jeevan impersonation brilliantly. If I had to pick two performs of this dim wit movie, then they have to be Manoj tiwari and Sanjay Mishra. Rest all are plain and simple BAD. Yes to add to misery of the viewer, Upen Patel and Tannissa (or whatever her name is) are also there in a role which would have been rejected by umpteen junior artists. Apart from few genuine moments, this movie is full of double meaning jokes and corny dialogs. Whatelse we could have expected from a movie which had a leading character as a lingerie supplier. Background score is also a minus point, the behan de takke track which keeps on playing during Anna's scenes is simply irritating. Music is poor, cinematography poorer but a good comedy need not have these two things still it can be successful but this movie isnt good comedy either.
Now coming to the point why this movie can be enjoyed in single theater cinema halls. Firstly in that sort of ambiance, you will certainly laugh on 80% of the gags in the movie. Afterall its jokes are better than Anil Kapoor jokes in Race, which is running to packed houses. Secondly when the ticket costs you just 40 bucks then you dont mind sitting through any movie :D.
I am still hopefull for Ashwini Dhir and his second outing as writer, Krazzy 4. In One two three it seems he wanted to make an Andaz Apna Apna but ended up making a Priyadarshan remake instead.

Race: Sex, lies and style with lot of confusion.

There is one thing common in all recent Abbas-Mustan movies, all the characters in the movies have their defined game plan. All of them are scheming against each other. I think now I know how Abbas-Mustan make their movies. They are two brothers with clearly distinct way of thinking. They first discuss one idea and write their individual scripts and in the end they club each others script and the result is a movie like Race, where everyone is conspiring against each other. I am not against unpredictability but, the way these movies are made it's more confusing and sometimes even director seem to forget, what exactly they want to show.

Race is a movie about two brothers Ranveer (Saif) and Rajiv (Akshaye). Sonia (Bipasha) is an upcoming model, who is falling for Ranveer and Sofia (Katrina) is Ranveer secretary, who secretly loves him. At least that is what we are told by Anil Kapoor's voice in the beginning. But after watching the entire movie, it seems that Anil was trying to confuse the audience by giving them irrelevant and incorrect information. Soon after we are shown some scenes involving Saif and Dileep Tahil, which we later come to know had nothing to do with the basic plot of the film. Finally we are told about Rajiv's master plan to earn 100 million from Ranveer's insurance policy by killing him with the help of Sonia (confused? you thought Bipasha was in love with Ranveer. Hold your breath may be she also has her own master plan. May be she actually loves Ranveer and is just double crossing Rajiv). By interval Ranveer is dead and RD (Anil Kapoor) is the investigating officer of the case. In second half we are told that Sofia also has her own plan of claiming the 100 million insurance money. We see confused faces of Rajiv and Sonia, but to your utter surprise Sofia and Rajiv are together in this plan. Confused again? me too.

May be some day Abbas-Mustan will learn that not everyone in this world is scheming against each other, there are actually some normal characters who react to the situation instead of having everything planned in advance. May be we can someday get to watch something like Bazigar or Khiladi from the director duo. I am certainly not expecting another Naqaab or Race.

This movie promises to be full of sex, lies and style, and that is what it delivers, with overdose of confusion. The movie is a visual treat with several good looking faces and beautiful locales of South Africa. I think in action movies don't require great acting, so wont talk about acting performances except mentioning Anil Kapoor, who is good in an underdeveloped role, speaking double meaning dialogs. None of the songs have anything to do with the story and could have been avoided. Minus the songs and some other irrelevant scenes, the movie could have been a better watch.

I would rate this as 5 out of 10. If you have Johnny Gaddaar's DVD, watch that instead of Race, if you are looking to watch a good thriller. Else you know what to expect from Race.

PS: If Anil Kapoor knew everything from the beginning, why he took all the trouble of investigating the case. Specially going to Capetown and meeting the real estate agent, he could have easily asked Ranveer, what happened there.

What toothbrush do you use?

Every time you switch on your TV there is a fair chance that you will end up watching some commercial, no matter what channel you are watching. I find those toothbrush and toothpaste ads where someone posing as a dentist will claim that he uses this particular product because 80% of dentists across the world use the same.

If you notice, you will find that 80% of dentist use colgate, 80% use pepsodent other 80% use oral b toothbrushes and so on. Sometime I wonder how many dentists across the world brush their teeth multiple times and each time they use a different brand toothbrush.

10,000 BC or was it Ramayana? (incomplete)

We have seen and heard about Ramayana. Sita is kidnapped by Ravana and Ram goes in search of her. Ram with the help from local tribes crosses the sea and destroys golden kingdom of Ravana to bring Sita back. Well, the story of 10,000 BC is more or less the same, except here our hero crosses the sea of sand instead of sea of water.

The movie is all about D'leh, we will refer to him as Symonds because of similar hair style. So our hero Symonds lives at a very cold place may be North or South pole, there Badi Maa keeps on telling stories about some prophecies. Symonds is not liked in the village because all think that his father was a coward and he abandoned his people. But while hunting mammoths Symonds somehow manages to kill one accidentally and everything changes. One fine day Symonds girlfriend Evolet is kidnapped by warlords along with many others from the tribe. Now it's time for Symonds to get his love back and release his fellow tribesmen. He along with great warrior Tic Tic, Karan and Baku go on the search of his love. On his way, he meets various tribesmen and has to face some wild creatures. Karan and Baku are also captured during the search.

Now Symonds along with Tic Tic, joins hands with many other tribesmen, whose brothers and sisters were also captured by the same warlords. So these allied forces decide to bring their fellows back. In their search they cross the sea of sand and reach Egypt. Where all the captives are forced to work as construction workers to build the pyramids. Finally our hero manages to free everyone and kill the almighty ruler of Egypt.

Vantage Point: Storytelling Rediscovered

I wonder how easy it is to kidnap or kill US President. We watch so many movies on same plot every year. Vantage Point is again a movie where the target is US President addressing an anti-terrorism summit in Spain, and falls prey to a terrorist plot. In this movie it takes only 5 well placed terrorists to kidnap/kill the president, unless they had one super agent in secret service.

The movie is about a 20 minute long incident, and we are shown these same 20 minutes 5 times from the eyes of different characters looking at the incident from different angle, different point of view. First we get to see US President getting shot at through the camera of a news channel, then our super agent in secret service, an American tourist shooting the event through his handy cam, a local cop, who somehow happens to know one of the terrorists. We even get to see the same event from the eyes of US President and finally we see the same event through the eyes of the terrorists and find out what actually happened.

Story of Vantage Point is very simple and straightforward, it covers a 20 minutes long event, but the beauty of the film is non-traditional narrative. We have shown the same event from different angles and that is what is the USP of the film. Some people actually didn't like the repetition of same scenes again and again, but I guess they did not notice the difference every time same scenes were played on the screen. Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker have done brilliant acting. Others also look convincing. By the way the movie is not about acting, it's about the narrative and the pace. It's story telling rediscovered in true sense.

My rating for Vantage Point is 7 out of 10. Worth a watch.