Dil Dosti Etc!

College Life!!! Some of the most memorable years of a person's life. A time of fun and frolic. A time of sex, drugs and rock (if so inclined). A time where you make some long lasting friendships. A time where you 1st experience true freedom. A time where you experience love in its most realistic state. All this and more is addressed in the movie Dil Dosti Etc.

I'd first heard about this flick in an issue of Filmfare and i was kinda interested. The movie sort of sounded like a more realistic version of Rang De Basanti minus all the shooting politicians and be the change fundas. Plus the starcast of Imaad Shah and Shreyas Talpade sounded pretty good and Smriti Mishra was coming back after a hiatus. So it sounded like an interesting indie campus movie. Atleast on paper it did.

Apurv (Imaad Shah) is a laid back rich kid who joins college just for the fun of it. His father is frustrated with his lazy attitude as he even turned down an offer from Yale University to stay back in India. He is pretty confused with his life and just keeps roaming here and there and everywhere, His favourite haunt being the brothel where he's deeply in love/lust with Vaishali (Smriti Mishra) a beautiful but sharp tongued prostitute with a heart of gold. But at the same time, he's trying to seduce Kintu (Isshita Sharma) a sharp but sweet 15 year old schoolgirl. He meets and befriends Sanjay (Shreyas Talpade) his senior and aspiring politician in college.

Sanjay Mishra is basically a weird cocktail of old and new values. He's from a backward area of Bihar where even today, The IAS is the only lucrative job. He however is idealistic and wants to do something for society. He is also very fearless and dynamic and doesn't back away from a fight. He falls in love with Prerna (Nikita Anand) a rich Delhi socialite. But unfortunately the clash between his old-fashioned ideals and her more modern fundas come in their way and cause a rift between them. All this happens in the backdrop of Delhi University where Sanjay is standing for elections for the post of President of the student union.

Now the story sounded exciting on paper. But Manish Tiwary unfortunately is not able to do full justice to the movie. It ends up looking more like the sexual adventures of a Delhi student. But to their credits, the actors somehow end up rising above the story and act pretty well. Especially Shreyas Talpade who manages to make his performance look realistic. Watch out for his outburst in the pre-climax. The role of Apurv seems to have been tailor-made for Imaad Shah. Smriti Mishra is as good as ever and makes you wonder where she had disappeared all these days. Isshita Sharma makes a confident debut and looks perfect in the role of the schoolgirl trying to act older. Nikita Anand makes a confident debut, but she needs to work a little on her expressions.

The dialogues of the movie are hilarious and mainly consist of Delhi lingo. The music is very light-hearted and blends well with the campus mood of the movie. Especially the raw and earthy Dum Laga which stays with you even after the movie's done.

Overall, not such a bad viewing experience after all. But doesn't exactly live up to expectations.

Johnny Gaddar!!

Ok, Now that we've got God's blessings, i suppose it's time to get on with the real business behind this blog.

Movie Reviewing

Today I ended up watching 3 movies back 2 back in adlabs with a very good friend of mine. The 1st movie we watched was the 1st day 1st show of Johnny Gaddar. Now this was a movie i had been looking forward to from a long time since i saw the trailer. It promised an edge of the seat adrenaline rush , some good thrills and an overall watchable movie. Plus all the pre-movie buzz was in favour of the movie. Some people like the folks at www.passionforcinema.com whose opinion i normally trust when it comes to movies had given it a thumbs-up and had hailed it as one of the better movies of the thriller genre. So naturally i was hooked and wanted to watch it. Anyways, enough of my rambling, it's better to get on with the review.

The movie begins with a black'n'white sequence on a rainy night and a man getting shot from behind. From here we move to an imaginatively designed opening credits which reminds one of the glory days in the 70s. We're introduced to the main players of the movie.

• Sheshadri (Dharmendra), a retired criminal by profession, but a gentleman by nature. On the surface, a very humble and charming person, but actually a very intelligent man with a razor sharp mind and equally sharp eyes that can size up a person on sight.

• Shardul (Zakir Hussain), Crudeness is his middle name. He doesn't believe in subtleties. He is a person who knows what he wants and will do anything to get it.

• Prakash (Vinay Pathak), A person who appears to be street-smart, but is in reality very naive and easy to fool. He is also a compulsive gambler due to which he always ends up losing a lot of money. His other weakness however is his wife whom he loves very much.
  

• Vikram (Neil Mukesh), A youngster who wants to make quick money rather than actually work for it. A very clever man, he's also very ambitious and has big plans.

• Shiva (Daya Shetty), A strongman whose lack of brains is made up for by his strength. He doesn't understand matters of intellect and prefers to settle matters by brute force.

There is also Mini (Rimi Sen), Vikram's loving girlfriend, Varsha (Ashwini Kalsekar), Prakash's wife and Inspector Naidu (Govind Namdeo), A ruthless police officer who happens to be a good friend of Sheshadri's.

The 5 are told by Naidu of a heist in Bangalore through which they can make 2.5 crores within 5 days. However during the heist, something goes wrong leading to a series of murders, mishaps and mayhem.

The 1st half of the movie literally moves at a break-neck speed leaving you no time to breathe or even blink your eyes and stops at a cliffhanger at the intermission. However after the intermission, it moves pretty much at a relaxed pace letting the frustration, guilt and fear of the protagonist (Or should i say antagonist!) sink into the audience. From there , the movie just keeps twisting and turning keeping you hooked throughout and finally leads to a twist ending which leaves you gasping for breath and makes you go "Oh my God, I didn't see that one coming!".

Dharmendra is as good as ever and makes full use of his charisma and genuine warmth for people in this movie. Neil Mukesh makes a confident debut and hopefully we should see more of him in the future. Zakir Hussain and Vinay Pathak are simply terrific with excellent performances. The rest of the cast ably supports the story.

The best part about the movie is that it never stops moving. No unnecessary sub-plots or songs to spoil the mood that was built up by the previous scene like in most movies. Sriram Raghavan who made a promising debut with Ek Hasina Thi (A fantastic thriller in its own right) goes a step ahead and makes a faster and grittier thriller. The movie has been shot stylishly and gives Mumbai a dark look given before in movies like Satya etc. The background music is equally racy and doesn't jar on the nerves of the audience.

The songs of the movie provide some of the background music and help the story move forward. Especially the title track which has to be one of the better songs heard by us lately.

Overall the movie has lived up to expectations, Its biggest plus point being the fact that it treats its audience as people with normal intelligence levels and doesn't spoon feed them. Only negative point is the lack of publicity for the movie as compared to crap like Dhamaal or Dhol etc. Anyways i guess, word of mouth publicity should help the movie to a large extent.

In The Beginning!

Well, I'm not exactly a very religious man. But I do believe that before you start something, you have to invoke the blessings of God. And who a better God than our very own Ganapati Bappa who is the God of auspicious beginnings.