Ajab prem ki gazab kahani

My ratings: 3.5 stars.
'Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani' is as much Santoshi's film as it is Ranbir's. The actor gets into the goofy character called Prem perfectly and is spectacular in the movie, specially, his charm and the manner in which he manages to turn even a simple scene to something so out of this world, is simply amazing. This is an out and out Ranbir affair and he floors one with his talent. Of course, he finally gets a role which allows him to soar uninhibitedly and he digs into it with relish. Ranbir is only able to take over the movie because of the wonderfully, nonsensical dialogues that he is given and the terrific support that he receives from his director and his co actors. The film has a quaint old world charm to it which coupled with the comic element, makes it a very touching and enjoyable movie.

The story is about a simpleton Prem, (Ranbir), who lives with his parents in a small hill station and is the president of the Happy Club, which consists of other equally, unemployed guys of his age. A chance encounter with Jenny (Katrina Kaif) and Prem ends up losing his heart to her, but lacks the courage to tell her about his feelings till it's too late. He discovers that she is in love with Rahul (Upen Patel) and he now makes it the mission of his life to unite the couple.

Santoshi handles the first half of the film very well indeed, but towards the latter half of the second half, the film seems to have been stretched too long and just about starts to get tiresome. The whole kidnapping angle, which forms the film's climax is a little too drawn out and one would have expected a more creative ending from Santoshi. The transformation in Rahul's character is quite unwarranted. But despite these areas, as a whole, Santoshi manages to keep the laughs going and mood breezy, thus exercising superb control on his actors and the screenplay, which is replete with witty one liners.

Total justice has been done to the wonderful music that has been composed by Pritam and Santoshi has picturised each song with a lot of love and care, bringing out its essence and flavour. In fact, the entire film has been shot wonderfully.

JAIL

My Ratings: 2.5 stars.
The film follows the life of Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh), an ambitious young executive, making his life up the corporate ladder. Just when everything seems to be going well for this young man, his life is turned upside down and he finds himself behind bars, convicted of a crime which he never committed. His room mate turns out to be a major drug dealer and the cops nab Parag and find a bag full of cocaine in his car. The drug belongs to his friend, who is gunned down by the cops and Parag pays for being in the car with him. His girlfriend (Mugdha Godse) and his mother hire a lawyer and try their best to get him released on bail, but the appeals is turned down and Parag is remanded to judicial custody.
Life in jail is really not all that different from life outside. Parag's bail hearing is turned down by the High Court a couple of times, but he finally gets justice and is a free man.
The jail portions are really realistic and one knows that Madhur has shot in actual jails. The research that he may have done for this film, all comes out in the detailed portrayal of life in prison that is shown in Jail. Madhur has to be congratulated on this and also about the different types of characters that people in the jail and their individual stories. The story is well in place, he gets the lingo and look right but fails to inject that x factor into the proceedings. The film has been well shot.

London Dreams

My Ratings: 2.5 stars.
The film is about the friendship between Manu (Salman Khan) and Arjun (Ajay Devgn), one of who loves music, while the other runs away from it. But music remains a part of both their lives, consciously or unconsciously. While Arjun runs away from home to become a musician, Manu, without realizing it has music in his blood. Arjun makes a name for himself in London and forms a band called London Dreams, while his best friend Manu whiles away his time back in the Punjab, chasing women and running up debts. Arjun takes him to London after hearing his voice, thinking that he could be an asset to his band. But little does he realize that the simple Manu would win the heart of millions with his stage performance and totally overshadow him. Having laboured hard for his success, Arjun cannot bear being upstaged by anyone, even his closest friend. To top it, Manu also manages to win the heart of Priya (Asin), the woman Arjun loves. Jealousy takes over and Arjun plots and plans Manu's downfall. But with it, he unknowingly also triggers the downfall of his band and his dreams. A saddened and much wiser Arjun reconciles with his friend and his superior talent and again shares the stage with him.

A very good story on paper and Shah makes a compelling film out of it as well. There are just a few problems with the movie as Shah ventures in to territories which he doesn't intend to explore. The problems arise mainly with the characters of Manu and Arjun.
But on the whole, London Dreams makes for a good one time watch.

Aladin

My Ratings: 2 Stars
The story opens with Aladin Chatterjee (Ritiesh Deshmukh), an orphaned kid who is bullied mercilessly by his schoolmates because of his name and is made to rub innumerable lamps to make the genie appear. Anyway, this Aladin grows up and falls in love with Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandes) but is unable to tell her about his love. Unwittingly, she presents him with a lamp, this one finally turns out to be a magic lamp and the genie, who calls himself Genius (Amitabh Bachchan) appears and wants to grant Aladin his three wishes. It is with the help of the genie that Aladin manages to win Jasmine's heart and beat the Ring Master (Sanjay Dutt). Genius tells Aladin that he is the chosen one to look after the lamp and also about his parents who died so many years ago in their bid to find the lamp. There is a flashback which shows how Aladin's parents perished in a landslide during their encounter with the Ring Master after they had found the magic lamp. Of course, Ghose again leaves us confused as to why Aladin was the chosen one to get the lamp. Anyway, the film ends happily, like most fantasies. The Ring Master is destroyed and Aladin, Jasmine and the Genie live happily together

BLUE

My Ratings: 1 star
'Blue' is a story of Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) who works with Aarav (Akshay Kumar) for his fishing business in Bahamas and is also a deep sea diver who knows the Pacific Ocean like the back of his hand. The greed and the fight for, in the movie if for the treasure in a sunken ship lady in blue, which is the sole motive of Aarav's existence and the reason behind that, is revealed only in the climax. All is going fine in the life of Sagar and his girlfriend Mona (Lara Dutta), when his younger brother Sam (Zayed Khan), who is a rebel and had run away from home five years back finds himself in a soup in Bangkok and runs back to big bro Sagar for help. Well, nothing new and novel about the story, but the crux is that whilst you are watching the movie you realize that the screen play is very weak and so is Anthony D'Souza direction. The story could have been made into a suspense leaving some space for the audience's imagination, however a bad screenplay breaks the backbone of 'Blue'.
Waste of Money. Just watch National Geographic channel instead for FREE.

Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna

My Ratings: 1 star
The film's story revolves around Mr and Mrs Khanna, that is, Sameer (Salman Khan) and Raina (Kareena Kapoor) and the distances in their marriage which ultimately lead to geographical distances as well. The reason being that Sameer feels that love is not enough and without a job in Melbourne there is nothing which is right in their marriage. Without bothering about what his better half wants, he decides to leave for Singapore and accept a lucrative offer of business and books his wife for a ticket to Delhi, where she is supposed to stay until he makes his fortune. At the airport terminal, he breaks the news to her and they both go their separate ways. Raina thinks differently and decides to stay back in Melbourne, find a job and wait for Sameer to come back. She finds a job as a salesgirl at the airport itself where she meets and befriends Aakash, who is a waiter at a cafeteria. Aakash is totally smitten by Raina and always refers to her as Mrs Khanna.
Aakash hopes to usurp Sameer's place on her life and become the Mr Khanna for this Mrs Khanna. But his hopes are shortlived as Sameer comes back and Raina is all set to leave Melbourne with him.That's when, Aakash and his friends try to create a rift between the couple but all fails till fate deals them a chance. The web of suspicion threatens to tear Raina and Sameer's marriage apart but their love finally prevails. The other Mr Khanna, that is Aakash, is left lovelorn and alone until another Raina enters his life i.e Deepika Padukone in a guest appearance.
Post 'Wanted', Salman is hot property but there is little that even he can do to lift the movie. The pace is slow in the first half, but kind of lifts in the second half once Salman is back. On a final note, 'Main Aur Mars Khanna' leaves one feeling quite disappointed.

All the Best

My Ratings : 3 stars.
It's Diwali time and hence the box office is loaded with movies that promise rocket power but as they rise upwards we realize that the content in them is just thrash bollywood masala and nothing else. Ajay Devgan failed with his previous attempts as a producer but this time he has played safe with just sticking to the basics. The story is about an unintentional wife swapping episode which leads to a series of bone tickling events. Sanjay Dutt is the elder brother who gives monthly pocket money to his lil step brother Fardeen Khan who lies to him about his marriage. Ajay Devgan plays fardeens best friend who gives him ideas about how to fool sanjay and still get the pocket money. One fine day Sanjay comes to their house and mistakes Bipasa for Mugdha as fardeens wife. This leads to one after the other misunderstandings and futher laughter riots. Ajay seems to have lost touch with comedy and his effort makes you feel that there is something artificial about his dialogue delivery as well. Fardeen makes a sincere effort but does not impress much. Sanjay Dutt looks very fat in most of the scenes. But Sanjay Mishra's performance is the one that got the audiences laughing in most scenes and has done a great job
Surely a one time watch.

Surrogates

My Ratings 2.5 stars.
Bruce willis is not at his best in this movie. The theme however is very creative. Here the humans have the option of creating their Robotic avatar that does their daily Jobs like going to office, going places even shopping. So everybody want's the look of their Avatar according to what they feel a perfect look can be. So you have these oldies who make roborts that make them look young forever. Then there is a race of humans who feel that by doing this the Human race is damaging their identity on this planet and these artificial avatars are taking over the world. So they are shown to be at war with this company called VSI which makes and supplies Roborts to humans. The thought is fantastic but the movie fails on execution. Infact for the first 30 mins i was wondering why is Bruce willis walking with a Wig on his head.
You can miss this one for sure even though you are a Die-Hard Bruce fan.

Wake Up Sid

My Ratings 4 stars. KJo's first with UTV is a superb movie. Ranbir and konkona have given a veru sincere performance. It's a very simple story for starters but the treatment and editing packed with excellent production values give it that extra punch making it really supercool. I was not convinced with the pairing of KoKo (konknona) with Ranbir. But the director in one of the scenes has drafted a superb solution for it by letting Ranbir admit that Koko looks older than him....now thats really a smart move. Ranbir (sid) hails from a a very rich family which is why he is never willing to except his share of responsibilities in life. He fails his commerce graduation miserabily while all his gang members pass. This makes him feel vunerable to inferiority complex and starts blaming his near and dear ones for what they have let him become. He fights with his family and leaves the house unknowing that he is worthless without his Dad's identity. Koko yet again plays a Bonk girl (for the 4th time in her bollywood career) and is very determined that she would make it big in Mumbai as a Professtional Writer. Her preferences for a mate do not match the profile of Ranbir and hence she is not attracted to him until the 3/4th part of the movie. She believes that her mate would be matured and responsible with a set career to look upon. Ranbir comes to stay with koko in her house and faces the difficulties of life for the first time. Simple things like managing for his own food become difficult for him. Finally he realizes that he needs to do what is right for him and his life which is leading him no where. He accepts a Job of a photografer is a magazine firm and discovers that this is what he always wanted to do. As time passes by he also excells in his job and gets his due gratification for it. This makes him as well his family really proud and they accept him back in their lives. See even as i am narrating the story to you it would make you feel thats it's such a simple tale of a journey from a Boy to a Man. But hey Ranbir has really excelled to deliver one of his very best performances in bollywood. Must say that the genes speak for him and he has a long way to go in the Film industry......A Superstar in the making folks.

What's Your Raashee?

My Ratings 2.5 stars.
This one is surely a Hatke movie. The career best performance of Piggy chopps. Infact this is one movie that reminds you that Actresses in bollywood movies do exist. Well Ashu has done it again , its his sheer talent that makes this simple Gujrati novel story transform into a masterpiece. But the lenght of the movie makes you feel that Ashu has hired a really bad editor for all his movies. Harman gets his space to break out of the Hritik look-alike frame of mind and plays a boy next door (Yogesh) who's an NRI.Yogesh is a young man who in his heart has always wanted a love marriage. Till suddenly he is told that he must find his dream girl within ten days to save his family from utter ruin. Finding the dream girl is tough enough. Finding her in a hurry is even tougher.
His solution is simple; he will meet one girl from each Raashee , as he feels that is the best way to make sure he finds a suitable wife, while also giving himself twelve chances to fall in love. Two meetings per day gives him six days to meet them, three days to make a final decision and he can get married on the tenth day, or so he thinks.
Well all in all i loved the title track Whats your Raashee's picturization wherein you have Harman dancing with all 12 Priyanka avtars in one screen.
You can wait for the DVD to be released rather than watching this one on the Big screen.