I went into this movie knowing nothing but that it starred Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shorey. I have come to expect a lot from Rajat Kapoor, his movies bring back images of ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ and that whole lot of crazy NFDC upstarts whose works are still considered the golden age of Indian comedies. Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak are no less. They were together last time with Konkona Sen in Kapoor’s Mixed Doubles - quite well done, I thought.

Movies which move in ‘real time’ tend not to be tolerable. Most of this movie revolves around the one night that Pathak is stranded with Kapoor and the rest of the cast drops by, including Milind Soman, Sarika and Bhairavi Goswami. Vinay Pathak’s Bharat Bhushan is a likeable character who doesn’t know when to stop. Hilarity ensues. I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard with (and not at) a bollywood movie. Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor’s rib-tickling conversation through the ‘night’ carries the movie; these guys are too under-rated. Some soon to be classic lines:

Khaata yehaan ka hai, gaata waahan ka hai

Aji [dinner ka] dahi kar dega woh

Meri shirt to nahi tere paas

Mujhe to kabhi kabhi lagta hai ki aap mujhe bilkul hi idiot samajhte hai

This video is hilarious, but it does an awesome job at highlighting some differences between men and women.

Krrish by Rakesh Roshan starring his son Hrithik turned out to be an interesting movie. By most standards of cinema (desi and videshi) it was disappointing technically and commercially. However, it seemed to have the potential of a franchise. The story of the budding hero seems to have scope, but it does draw from a bunch of the other comic book giants out there. Krrish’s tale of triumph resonates most with our good ol’ neighbourhood Spiderman. The lone caring grandmother, the promise of good, the need to hide the identity; in terms of superhuman powers he seems at par with Spidey as well - strength and agility but no flight. They made good (in the movie) with the archnemisis. Naseerudding Shah played Dr.Arya (yes, another mad scientist) out for global domination albeit with an Indian flavor - foreseeing the future.

Obviously, the concepts of this movie were drawn up by papa and beta Roshan while sharing a Blue Label. You can almost hear them slurring with “And then he will build a computer that will be better than all jyotshis (fortunetellers) combined…’hick’…”. They didn’t work enough on the physics on the hero’s movements and let the wire stunts get carried away. I wish people with access to resources like the Roshans should invest in technical consultants and not just pujaris for their mahurats. In any case, this movie is a small leap for mankind and giant step for Indian Cinema. I hope companies like the ones behind Matrix and animation studios like Pixar wake up, realize the mass market hungry for their business and smell the South Indian coffee.

I have been waiting for this movie for a while now. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara - a take on Shakespeare’s Othello has Ajay Devgan (Othello), Vivek Oberoi (Cassio), Saif Ali Khan (Iago), Konkona Sen (Emilia), Kareena Kapoor (Desdemona), Deepak Dobriyal (Rodrigo) and Naseerudin Shah (Duke). The cinematography seems tight and the music (especially the title track) is mind-blowing especially with my favorite Sukhvinder Singh (you may recall him from Chaiyya Chaiyya) back in form after a long time. I am a fan, like many others, of the new and improved Saif 2.0 and this movie just proves us right. He is a chameleon and has a few tricks up his sleeve that we all need to look out for. Some people call Ajay Devgan a taxi driver, but like it or not he handles Bihar like no other. Whether its in Gangajal or in and as Omkara, hes the man. For the rest of the cast, I need to watch the movie.