Shaitan and CineMax Bangalore – Review

So, Today abruptly we decided to checkout the just opened first CineMax of Bangalore, in new Bangalore Central at Sarjapur Road. My friends were tired of listing to me bitch about Innovative Multiplex anyways. This place is such a relief, small screens but sound system and seating is great … for the 150 Rs. price of weekend … It’s the best place for me in Bangalore right now.

Now the movie… SHAITAN …

The last two movies I reviewed here were of the same genre, That doesn’t mean I like dark movies … It’s just that I feel so compelled to talk about them and most of my friend end up not liking them and I resort to blog about it.

The movie is dark no doubt about it, but not as dark as either of the movies I reviewed before, LSD and Gulaal. But it had it’s high points. The story is pretty simple 5 friends, boozing and doping, one mistake and end up in a big mess, and things starts to get ugly from there on. The end is what took me for a surprise, a pleasant one at that.

The cinematography and the background score is marvelous, the best part of the movie. Except Kalki Koechlin as Amrita Jayshankar a.k.a. Amy and Neil Bhopalam as Zubin Shroff other performances were pretty average. Talking about the Direction … well Bejoy Nambiar  is no Anurag Kashyap, but then this movie is no Gulaal or DevD either.

It’s not a masterpiece, but definitely a teat for the fans of Mr. Kashyap and this genre. Go, watch it … without very high expectations You’ll like it.

Love, Sex aur Dhokha

Ok, So other than the Title (of course) there were two things which attracted my attention toward this movie.

First, this being directed by Dibakar Benerjee (Director of “Oye Lucky Lucky oye” and “Khosla ka ghosla”), I was expecting this movie to be different kind of entertainer.

Second the Producer of the Movie Ekta Kapoor, going against her “K” addiction by choosing such title which doesn’t even have a random spelling for numerology sake.

So, what the movie is all about ?

The movie consists of three vaguely interconnected stories, namely …

mehendi laga ke rakhna (LOVE) :-

A love story, inspired from the 90’s romantic movies. As the name of the story suggests the protagonist’s name is Rahul, a film school student making his graduation movie, who meets Shruti (actress in his movie ) and they fall in love. This whole story is shot with a regular shooting camera, which we usually see in marriages and all. The last scene of this story is pretty strong … it shook me to the core … it looks very much like lifted from cloverfield (the irony part to be precise), but cloverfield failed to leave such a mark.

Badnaam Shoharat (SEX) :-

This is actually the third chapter of the movie, but if we go buy the time line, it ends before the second one and fits well with the second part of the title too. This part is shot with the hidden cameras. The story is about Prabhat, a journalist specialist in sting operation who was failing to meet the demand of his TRP thirsty boss and an aspiring model Naina who’s been exploited by the casting couch. Both meets while trying to commit suicide, and decides to help each other, her by doing a sting operation on acts of Pop singer “lauki local”.

paap ki dukaan (DHOKA) :-

This again has two protagonists, Adarsh an underemployed MBA graduate and Rashmi a regular looking, night shift worker at a 24X7 supermarket. Adarsh starts interacting with Rashmi with the motive of getting a sex tape, so he can sell it off and pay back the money he borrowed from “the committee”. His love for rashmi kept changing his priorities from time to time, but he ends up taking advantage of her when she was very volatile and needed some one to comfort her. This part of the movie is all shot with CCTV cameras, which were maintained by Adarsh and his colleague who originally gave him the idea of making a Sex Scandal Tape.

—–

The movies is less than 2 hours long, with no song disturbance as such. And the best part about the movie is the cinematography by Nikos Andritsakis other then the direction of Mr. Benerjee of course. The acting is very natural, and so are the stories. You can’t help but be part of it. You feel for the characters, you related to them …. and of course you cry for them too. Even after the movie is over you are left with the desperation to find more and more about them.

It’s one movie, I would rate higher than any multistarer, super entertainer big budget movies. Please please please go and watch this one in the cinema hall.

PS:- Don’t go for the movie expecting nudity. You’ll be disappointed.

PS:– The language is pretty strong, which adds to realness of the movie could be offending to some people though.

PS:— No, I am not getting paid by ekta kapoor for this review.

PS:—- pic courtesy: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Gulal – review

I don’t write reviews … this is probably my first review … but when I saw such a bad response from audience for such an exceptional movie, I couldn’t resist.

I am not an Anurag Kashyap fan, I enjoyed Dev D but I was not awestruck as I was by this one. It’s a movie which reaches to your brain and squeeze it so badly that either you can’t stand the pain and quit or just enjoys it till the climax.

I don’t know about Rajasthan, but spending my teenage in MP, I’ve seen how filthy college politics could be. I could so relate me, you, any one to Dileep Singh played by Raja Chaudhary. That is what exactly happens to many bright students who are just there to study but ultimately end up loosing themselves, just because they get sick of being called fattoo.

And there is one name which should be praised more than Mr. Kashyap for the movie, and that name is Piyush Mishra. He is the Music Director, Lyricist and Actor in the movie. There’s no doubt that songs of the movie are outstanding and have been placed so perfectly it carries the tension and mood from the beginning to the end.

Gulal is pleasant break from the usual ha ha he he ho ho cinema. I would strongly recommend this movie for two and a half hour of tryst with reality.