Pathaan, Review: Exploits and exploitation Encyclopedia Brittanica defines a pathan thus: Pashtun, also spelled Pushtun or Pakhtun, Hindustani Pathan, Persian Afghan, ethnolinguistic group residing primarily in the region that lies between the Hindu Kush in northeastern Afghanistan and the northern stretch of the Indus River in Pakistan. The Pashtun constitute the largest ethnic group of the population of Afghanistan and bore the exclusive name of Afghan before that name came to denote any na...

Vikrant Rona, Review: Ducking in 3D Exotic, lush green locales and serial killing do not go together, but here they do. Vikrant Rona is the name of the protagonist (or is it?), the second part of which, ‘rona’, means ‘crying’ in Hindustani. The ‘n’ is pronounced more harshly in the film, so it is not exactly ‘rona’ but roȠa (approximation). The makers decided to retain this name from the original Kannada, although it could have easily been chan...

Hachette’s The Bollywood Pocket Book Series, A 4-in-1 Set, by Diptakirti Chauduri: Get set Yes, it’s a pun. I mean you should get the set, buy the book, or rather, books. They look deceptively thin when ensconced in the hardcover box, but provide a substantial reading once you pull them out. Book one is about Iconic Dates, with Raj Kapoor and Nargis on the cover, under an umbrella. The author reminds us about the calendar of events that begin with Raja Harishchandra’s releas...

Bachchan Paandey, Review: Gangsters are best played by real-life gangsters Why would you choose a name like Bachchan Pandey, unless you thought you could cash-in on the franchises called Amitabh Bachchan (name of a real life actor) and Chulbul Pandey (name of a reel-life character, played in several movies by Salman Khan)? Point is, does a superstar himself, like Akshay Kumar, who plays the title role, need these props? Leaving the Paandey behind, ‘Bachchan’ is made to speak some ...

        IFFI 52, 034: Some competition films not competitive, below par When you have already attended 44 IFFIs, you pretty much know what to expect. Or do you? Arriving from Mumbai by train on the 20th morning, the day of the inauguration, I found my usual hotel in an unkempt state. The owner, who had a flat there till some years ago, has let it sink into squalor, but critics like me, who fund all own expenses at IFFI, cannot really complain. A couple of hours later, after...

Love Aaj Kal 2020, Review: 141 minutes of messy, moronic, melodramatic mishmash What do you do when that elusive commodity called plot decides to stay clear of your net? You dig into your archives and find a film that you think lends itself to building a sequel. You also pay a visit to the Hollywood classic which helped you spawn another set of two films, the first a charmer, the second that should have been much warmer. And so, from the stable that gave us Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal 2009 and J...

Dabangg 3, Review: A Bad Dab at Bangg 3 theory There must be a theory that if the first two instalments of Dabangg have worked, a third one must be attempted. The theory probably stipulates that this will work even if it has a skeleton in place of a story, that a host of insider jokes, tongue-in-cheek references to another superstar, repetition of dialogue and the smash hit song of the earlier two Bangs, will replicate box-office magic, that the directorial abilities of Prabhudeva will stitch...

Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna, Review: Limerence, belligerence and incoherence A clutch of songs, exquisitely picturised, with little or no lip sync, linked together by a skeletal story about obsessive love, came to Mumbai cinemas today under the title Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna (How Much Do I Love You). Taken from a hit number from the film Kudrat that was popular in the early 80s, the title of the film is appropriate, and the original song itself occurs several times in the film, on the radio, or as a ...

Yamla Pagla Deewana--Phirse/3, Review: YPDP 3, Y indeed? Is good judgement failing the Deols? And did any well-wisher not bring to their notice that the story and screenplay of Yamla Pagla Deewana Phirse/3 is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Or is it both? Whatever the reality, fact is that we have the Dharmendra Deol, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol starrer released this week, a weak exercise in futility. He Man Dharmendra, probably the first hero to show off his rippling muscles bare-...

Siraj Syed reviews Anaarkali of Arrah: Item girl--“Spite ’em girl, Bite ’em girl” Ten minutes into this loud and raw film, you know you will root for the protagonist, an item girl plying her art in Arrah, a small town in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. An item girl is a woman who wears garish costumes, sings, dances, cavorts, titillates and tantalises on stage, to a public, sing-along audience, that joins her full-of-double-entendre lyrics, lusts after her and drool...

Golf is not very popular in India. Neither is ice hockey. Cricket is. So you cannot blame Sohail Khan for making these basic changes to the plot of the Adam Sandler film of yesteryear, Happy Gilmore (1996). Sandler was a failed ice-hockey player who gets holed big in golf. It’s 2016. Enter Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a failed male underwear street-vendor who can hit sixers at will, and carries over his tennis ball cricket prowess to the golf course. Freaky? What else? And yes, his name is Ali. ...

IFFI Goa 2015, Festival Diary, III Diary pages have got juggled, inadvertently, so, though numbered III, this page should have been IV. Please excuse the oversight and treat this as IV. Although posted earlier, IV is actually III. Austerity is the name of the game, mismanagement is the characteristic and continuing hostility towards media, and, in some cases, delegates too, are factors that dominate IFFI Goa 2015. A circus called the Film Bazaar, organised by the National Film Development Co...

MFF 17, by Jio-MAMI, Festival Diary, III For me, MFF 17 began on 31st October, with Star India’s Movie Mela (Fair), India's first movie carnival, where, over the whole day, a reported two thousand movie fans and celebrities tuned-up. The event was open to all delegates and was held at Mehboob Studios, in Bandra, founded by one India’s greatest ever film-makers, Mehboob Khan. It was kicked off with a session by director Rajkumar Hirani (Munnabhai, 3 Idiots, PK) and his writer,...

Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2, Review: Sucker bunch and the sex carrots                                              Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 has been described in some media reports as a not so true sequel to 2011 film, Pyaar Ka Punchnama. Not having seen the earlier Punchnama (dissection/five witnesses to a crime report report/post mortem; ‘punch’ means five), I cannot comm...

Bangistan, Review: Citizen Wong Kar-Wai meets Raging Bull at FcDonald’s If references, allusions and name-dropping could make a film watchable, Bangistan would have arrived with a bang. Sadly for debutant director Karan Anshuman, that récipé fails to tickle the taste-buds, and the film turns out be a dish that is half un-cooked and half over-cooked. Why he chose to use crutches like parodying the title of Orson Welles’ all-time masterpiece, Citizen Kane, poking fun a...