ACP Pradyuman's Law of Solving Crime

ACP Pradyuman needs no introduction. Everyone who has ever seen any episode of CID in last 15 years knows him very well. Who have not seen CID would know him from a lot of CID jokes doing rounds over the internet and mobile world. Whomsoever still does not recognise him can stop reading further because this post is not for them.

ACP has been solving crime for last 15 years without fail with no promotions or transfers. He has not been promoted or transferred because he is indispensable. He has derived a method of solving crime, which is foolproof and has not failed him ever in last so many years. We will call this method "ACP's Law of Solving Crime".

Everyone familiar with ACP is familiar with this image of him.

Over the years people have noticed him making this gesture with his right hand and likened it to Fleming's Right Hand Rule. Very few people have actually understood the real meaning of this gesture. For the benefit of all here is the explanation. This is ACP Law of Solving Crime. His three fingers are pointing towards three different directions and they mean that you need three points to solve any crime conclusively i.e. it requires a combination of total three evidences or witness to nail the correct culprit. With two points you can reach a suspect but it always requires a third point to find the real criminal.

This three point rule is the reason any typical CID investigation is run in three parallel streams. One is normally headed by Abhijeet, second is headed by Daya and last but not the least third is headed by highly talented Dr Salunkhe. When all these three mutually exclusive lines of investigations point to same direction you finally nail the criminal.

Gangs of Wasseypur

After so many disappointing movies this year, this was a movie I was looking forward to. You expect a lot from a movie with likes of Anurag Kashyap, Manoj Bajpai, Tigmanshu Dhulia (director of some of my favourite movies, acting for the first time), Piyush Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddique (Peepli Live and Kahaani) associated with it.

The movie starts with a bunch of people attacking a house with guns and grenades. Then the movie goes into flashback and we are told about the history of coal mafia in Dhanbad and the rivalry between Qureshi's and Khan's. Rashid Khan is forced out of his village Wasseypur by Sultana daku and he is forced to work for Ramadhir Singh. When Ramadhir discovers about Rashid's plans to kill him, he gets him killed instead. Rashid's son Sardar Khan makes revenge from Ramadhir only motive of his life. He does not just want to kill Ramadhir, he wants to destroy him and wants him to know who is causing this destruction and why. He tells his wife Nagma, "Saale ki kah ke lunga." While Sardar is planning his revenge in Dhanbad, the story shifts to Wasseypur and Sardar gets into fights against Sultan, nephew of the same Sultana daku who forced his father out of his village.

In Dhanbad, Sardar Khan is making babies with his wife Nagma and in Wasseypur he get involved with Durga. The story moves on and Sardar's sons grow to work for him, while Sultan now working for Ramadhir plans to get rid of Sardar and attacks him. Now we must wait for the next part to see where the story goes.

It's difficult to make audience relate to a protagonist who is made of all evil. It requires talents like Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino to achieve that. Anurag Kashyap and Manoj Bhajpai have achieved something of that sort here. Sardar Khan has not a single good quality about him, yet you can relate to the character. Thanks to brilliant direction and superb acting. Tigmanshu Dhulia is the surprise packet as Ramadhir Singh. Who knew the talented director can be so good in front of the camera as well. Richa Chaddha is spot on as Nagma. It was Nawazuddin Siddique's act as Faizal Khan that ensured even higher expectations from 2nd part. Everyone of the actors were spot on and played their part perfectly, which is so rare when you have a such a big line up of characters. The setting and the language was consistent through out the length of the film. This is one Indian gangster movie in true sense showing the real gangs from the part of India that is rarely explored by our film industry. There is so much happening to so many characters that most of the characters are not developed completely and many times you rely on the background narration to know about them, which sometimes can be confusing if you are not paying attention. You have to be at the edge of your seats to completely appreciate the movie.

In the end special mention to the music. Did anyone ever think that "teri kah ke lunga.." can be a song?

The Amazing Spiderman: A Love Story

If you could erase Spiderman 3 from your memory, first two Spiderman movies were almost perfect. After third movie studio decided a reboot of the franchise and came up with The Amazing Spiderman. They changed everything, but kept all that was wrong with Spiderman 3. The result is less of a superhero movie and more of a love story. If I wanted to watch a love story I would not have chosen Spiderman. When I go for a superhero movie I expect some super action and I believe it was stupid of the makers to sacrifice action for the sake of parallel love track.

The Amazing Spiderman starts with a young Peter Parker being left to his uncle Ben's custody by his parents, who never come back. Search for his father's past leads him to Oscorp where he gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider and gains his superpowers. He then uses his new found powers to confront high school bully and impress his crush Gwen Stacy. When he decides to not stop a burglar, who ends up killing his uncle, he turn a vigilante searching for his uncle's killer. In a stupid move he hands over his father's formula, to Dr Curt Conners, probably the same person his father was trying to hide it from. The formula helps Dr Conners become a giant lizard, giving girls across the world more reason to be afraid of lizards. Now spidey takes it as his responsibility to save the world from the giant lizard. The climax fight is not very impressive and much less spidey-like.

While Andrew Garfield does a fine job as Peter Parker, I believe Tobey Maguire was a better Spiderman. Green Goblin and Doc Oc were more menacing than Dr Conners' giant lizard. On the positive side Gwen Stacy is much better than monotonous Mary Jane. Director Mark Webb leaves his mark on the scenes between Peter and Gwen but I would rather watch (500) Days of Summer again for that rather than look for those elements in a superhero movie. Also 3D experience in Big Cinemas sucks.

I am now waiting for The Dark Knight Rises, hoping Nolan will not disappoint.