Dil Dhadakne Do Movie Review

One Word which describes the film - Picturesque

Genre - Comedy/ Family Drama

Best Dialogue - 'Is family ki yahi problem hai, sab upar upar se bat karte hai, asli bat to koyi karta hi nahi hai.

Music- Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Producer -Ritesh Sidhwani
Farhan Akhtar

Story- Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar (dialogue), Javed Akhtar (additional dialogue) 

Direction- Zoya Akhtar

Cast- Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shah, Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose,Zarina Wahab, Vikrant Massey, Ridhima Sud

Budget- 60 Crores approximately 

The film was first announced as a story based on the brother- sister relationship between Zoya and Farhan Akhtar played by Kareena Kapoor and  Ranbir Kapoor respectively.

Over the years not only the cast was changed but from a brother- sister film it became the story of a dysfunctional Punjabi family who plan a cruise to celebrate the parents' 30'th wedding anniversary.

Most of the celebrities and film stars were all praises for the film as they must have identified with this ultra rich family who instead of chocolates and toys offer planes to their kids as bribe.

Initially I was happy to see that the film was 170 minutes long but once it started, within 15 minutes it became very clear that the journey is going to be a very slow one. There are 20 seconds dialogues followed by 10 seconds of silence. Some episodes are totally unnecessary and should have been totally edited from the film.

Anil Kapoor and Shefali Shah are perfect in their roles. In some scenes their chemistry is so good that you will feel that they are actually married to each other. Their characters have various shades of grey and like experts they manage to give the perfect expression in every scene.
Anil Kapoor gets to say this epic line which every kid must have heard at least once in his/her life 'Tumne aaj tak kiya kya hai ? Nothing ! You are lucky that I'm your father.' 

Priyanka Chopra has lost too much weight and looks tired. She has an excellent voice but in most of the scenes she has a bad throat and doesn't sound like her usual self.

Ranveer Singh is the life and soul of the otherwise reticent family. He is vibrant, makes the audience laugh and is cute in some scenes. He is paired opposite Anushka Sharma with whom he made his Bollywood debut in 2010 ( Band Baaja Baaraat ) and later was also romantically linked. Though now they are dating other people , they share a great on screen chemistry. As aptly described in a dialogue, ' Mohabbat ki shuruwat mai aisa hi hota hai, zabaan kam bolti hai, ankhen bolti hai, jism bolte hai.'

Anushka Sharma has a strong role and some good dialogues but as she is not part of the family she gets less screen space. First Bombay Velvet flops at the Box office and now this film is off to a bad start, guess the news lips are not that lucky for Anushka.

Farhan Akhtar must have been added in the film as an after thought as least attention is paid to his character. He is shabbily dressed in most scenes, doesn't even bother to shave or comb his hair which was quite disappointing for his fans. Moral he should learn from this film is, even when you are the producer and your sister is the director you shouldn't be over confident.
Javed Akhtar has penned some dialogues which are used in a narrative style. Loved this one, ' Doosre karte hai to use hypocrisy kehte hai aur jab khud wohi kam karte hai to use duniyadaari kehte hai.'

The main problem of the film is the presence of too many characters. So many parallel stories are running in the film that many scenes just add to the existing confusion. Many characters are introduced but near the end they just fade away and the focus abruptly shifts to the main members of the family.
The music is average and none of the song stays with us once the movie ends. Guess you really need a Honey Singh or Arijit Singh to have a chart buster song. 
The film has nothing to offer to the masses and so it will be a difficult task for the film to  reach the 100 Crore mark.   

In a line, the film is 170 min long, slow at times, will make you sleep in some scenes but overall it's a classy film made by a woman for other women.

Time-pass. Can be seen in theaters with best friends else better wait for its World TV premier.

Movie Review - Shootout at Wadala

Movie Review - Shootout at Wadala


Release date – 3'rd May 2013 

One Word which describes the film –Triple A

Genre – Action / Crime
 
Story - Sanjay Gupta , Hussain Zaidi ( Dongri to Dubai )

Music – Anu Malik , Mustafa Zahid , Anand Raj Anand , Nadeem Saifi , Anjjan Meet

Producer -  Sanjay Gupta , Anuradha Gupta ,Ekta Kapoor , Shobha Kapoor

Direction - Sanjay Gupta

Cast - John Abraham , Kangna Ranaut , Anil Kapoor , Tusshar Kapoor , Sonu Sood , Manoj Bajpai , Mahesh Manjrekar , Ronit Roy

Budget – 40 crores (approximately)

Review - 

Sanjay Gupta is known for his dark thrillers { Kaante (2002),Musafir (2004) ,  Zinda (2005) } but this time he has come up with a film so full of violence , cuss words and sex that it can be considered as Bollywood's answer to XXX Films.

This movie is based on the  Hussain Zaidi's book "Dongri to Dubai", the film's plot centers around the rise of international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and his rivalry with gangster Manya SurveThis movie is based on the  Hussain Zaidi's book "Dongri to Dubai", the film's plot centers around the rise of international terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and his rivalry with gangster Manya Surve. The film is mainly focuses on the first ever police encounter and outlines the gang wars as it culminates into a three-way epic face-off between the gangsters,  Manya Surve , Haskar brothers and Mumbai police.Wherein  Manya Surve was shot dead, This incident  took place at the junction next to Dr. Ambedkar college, Wadala, Mumbai on 11 January 1982.Thus the name ‘ShootOut at wadala’.

Sanjay Gupta who has returned to direction after 8 years has left no stone unturned to make this film a commercial hit. He even took the creative liberty to use the real names involved in the incident to his characters.

The main strength of the film is it's powerful dialogues written by Milan Zaveri . Every character has a couple of lines which make the audience whistle and clap for them .

John Abraham, as the main protagonist of the film gets the best dialogues , best action sequences and the chance to romance the sole heroine in the film Kangana Ranaut . Though in the start his dialogue delivery is flat but as he works on building his body in the prison there is also some improvement in his acting. So there are actually claps from the audience when he says 'haddi se lekar kanoon tak, sab todta hoon' 

Manoj Bajpai and Sonu Sood are perfect for the role of  Haskar brothers. They represent style and power with hidden cruelity which is shown when they kill another gangster with fruit juicer.

Anil Kapoor as the police officer  who wants to get the city rid of gangsters has given an action  packed performance .He looks fit and smart and makes us wish there were more police officers like him in real life.

Sanjay Gupta's passion for perfection can be seen when he spends over Rs 2 crores only on shooting one sequence featuring an old BEST bus from the 70s. “The sequence would have cost us under under a crore, but we had to get a vintage bus which was not available and even when we managed to get one, it wasn’t allowed to enter Mumbai city. Because of that we had to shoot the sequence outside the city, which tripled our budget and we ended up spending more than Rs 2.6 crore,” said Gupta in an interview.

There are  three  item songs, where  Sunny Leone , Priyanka Chopra and Sophie Choudhry  seem to compete with each other in showing the maximum cleavage and doing the most provocative steps.

Rating - 2.5 out of 5

Best  Dialogue – 

' Baadshah ki gali mein aake uska pata nahin poochhte. Ghulamo ke jhuke hue sar khud ba khud raasta bata dete hain.'

Verdict-

In a  line if you are over 18 and like gangster flicks there is no reason for you to avoid this film.
Good one time theater watch .