'Titli' - Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Titli'

Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Dark Chocolate'

Expectations:

Before the arrival of a multiplex era, our Hindi film industry was mostly divided into three different styles of film making. The majority part was dominated by the popular entertaining cinema and a niche part belong to the artistic type of films, followed by a small sect of films which were known as the middle of the road type of realistic films. The whole scenario started to change with the arrival of the multiplex era and films like ‘Satya’, ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Bandit Queen’ and others. These movies had a realistic cinema as its core content, but were presented in an engaging manner due to which they managed to rake in decent box office numbers. The success of such films inspired more film makers like Anuraag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and others to churn out more hard hitting realistic type of films which also catered the international film festivals. In recent times, we witnessed many big banners known for making out and out commercial money spinners venturing into the small world of quality based films and the latest to join them is ‘Yash Raj Banner’ with their small offering known as ‘Titli’. This movie has already been screened at prestigious film festivals and finally witnesses its local release. Thus, let’s find out whether this new attempt by the ‘YRF’ banner will add as a new milestone in our Hindi cinema or might end up yet another good concept based film, which is made only to lure the film festival audiences. 

Story:

‘Titli’ is a story of Titli (Shashank Arora) and his brothers (Ranvir Shorey and Amit Sial). The trio follows their family business of carjacking and other criminal acts. Titli wants to leave his brothers and follow his own dream of managing a parking area in a popular mall. But, his brothers have other plans for him due to which they get him married to Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), so that they can add her also in their criminal activities. In short span, Titli comes to know that Neelu has her own dark secret and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.

Screenplay & Technicalities:

The story is something different and has lots of twist and turns attached to it. The narrative part in the first half is nail biting followed by a hard hitting but bit slow second half. There are some fantastic scenes like Ranvir trashing Shashank over money followed by him basing a delivery guy in front of his family, the brothers seeking Shivani’s hand for marriage, Shanshak and Shivani meeting Ranvir’s wife and many more which manages to engage you. Then there are some dark, disturbing and hard-hitting scenes like Shashank and Shivani’s first crime act which scares her drastically, Shashank and Shivani’s bed room scenes followed by the domestic violence out there, Shashank taking Shivani to meet her lover, Shashank fracturing Shivani’s hand and few more. It will take time for a viewer to forget these disturbing images. On the flip side, there are a few scenes involving Shashank’s change of heart, which demands more explanation followed by bit, slow screenplay in the middle part of the film. Right from the visual similarities in all the three brothers to the minor part of their personal lives (Ranvir’s obsession for good food, Amit’s silent homosexual love track, etc) to the house location which looks like a rotten hell, ‘Titli’ has some of the finest and minute detailing one could see in the recent times. Similarly, the cinematography is of top notch.

Music & Direction:

The background music by Karan Gaur acts like an additional screenplay in the film.

Director Kanu Behl who co-write and assisted director Dibakar Banerjee in ‘Love Sex Aur Dhokha’ manages to create a huge impact with his directorial debut. Its due to Kanu’s fine sensibilities one tends to feel the skin of each and every character in the film. Kudos to his way of presenting this hard hitting film in such an engaging manner and ending it in such a way that it justifies the association of the ‘YRF’ banner which is mostly known for making romantic films. The movie seems like quenching the thirst of all good and meaningful movie lovers.

Performances

It’s good to see Ranvir Shorey back in such an intense role. The makers have extracted the potentiality of a fine actor. Shivani Raghivanshi is highly impressive and has a bright future. Shashank Arora does his part with total grace. The dilemma inside his head gets totally visible on his face due to his natural acting. Amit Sial, Lalit Behl and Prashant Singh lends good support.

So bol meri 'Filmi Khopdi' iss film mein kitna hain Dum???(Spoiler Alert)

Dum??? Well, if you love good, meaningful cinema then this movie has lots and lots of dum for you. The masses might shy away from this movie, but for others, it gives you the feeling of watching something different, something good and something meaningful which ends up being a must watch type of film. The movie and its happenings will haunt you for a long time. Way back in the 90’s ‘Yash Raj’ presented a violent love story in the form of ‘Darr’ and after almost two decades, they give us one of the most unusual love story which is like a dark chocolate, which despite of being bitter is still cherished only by all those who have elegant taste of fine stuffs. 

Ratings - 4*/5

'Main Aur Charles' - Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Main Aur Charles'

Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'The News Hour Debate..'

Expectations:

Our Hindi film maker’s fascination towards real life criminals have helped them carve some great real life criminals in their films. Pran saab’s impersonation of dacoit Raaka, Amjad Khan and Vinod Khanna essaying characters like Gabbar and Jabbar Singh or Amitabh Bachchan are few among the various examples where, iconic film characters were etched based on the real life criminals. Though, there were some striking references in films like ‘D-Day’, ‘Aakhen’, ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbai’ and many more films. Few filmmakers tried to attempt biopic type of films in the form of ‘Godmother’, ‘Pan Singh Tomar’, etc and enhanced the level of our Hindi cinema. The latest to join them is ‘Main Aur Charles’ which is inspired by a real life happening related to international serial killer Gurmukh Shobraj who is popularly known as Charles Shobraj. The promos look exciting and Randeep Hooda, in terms of looks has a striking resemblance with its main protagonist. So let’s find out whether ‘Main Aur Charles’ will manage to give us one more good film based on the real life happenings of a criminal or might end up being just a normal film trying to cash in over the popularity of the famous criminal.

Story:

‘Main Aur Charles’ is a story of Charles (Randeep Hooda) a con man cum serial killer who escapes from one of the highest guarded prison cell from India. Police inspector Amod Kanth (Adil Hussain) and his team starts to investigate the whole matter and starts hunting for Charles in every corner of the country. Charles is supported by various people consisting of Richard (Alexx O’Neil), Liz (Mandana Karimi), Mira (Richa Chadda) and others. On the other end, Mumbai police appoints Inspector Joshi (Shanu Dev) to catch hold of Charles and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.

Screenplay & Technicalities:

The movie looks outstanding on papers and even as a one liner idea. The chosen chapter from Charles Shobraj’s life in this film is fascinating and has a high amount of curiosity attached to it. Sadly, the screenplay lacks proper detailing and strong happenings. The movie starts with abrupt date references right from the 60’s era to the mid 80’s. There are loads of repetitive scenes involving the love making and drugging patterns of Charles. Many of these scenes are irrelevant, especially the whole super stretched Goa track. In the whole film, they keep hammering us by saying that Charles has hypnotic powers to charm any girl and control other peoples mind, but there isn’t a single scene which justifies or presents it in a proper manner. Also, the basic detailing about Charles is not shown, due to which the personal connect is missed out. There is definitely a high amount of curiosity in the film, which has been mildly sustained with the help of the few good scenes like Adil Hussain interrogating Charles victims followed by his chat with Richa, the whole jailbreak part, Richa-Randeep conversations, Adil Hussain gets the main motive of the case, etc. On a technical basis, there are many loopholes related to the date, style, setup, language, etc related to the era shown in the film. There is one huge blooper in the film where the police nabs Randeep and instantly in the next shot, it’s announced on radio after which the police nabbing scene again continues. The cinematography is of top notch. 

Music & Direction:

There is not much scope for music in this film. Remix version of ‘Jab Chaye Tera Jadoo’ is good, but the background score resembles the score from ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbai’.

Director Prawal Raman is known for making some good thrillers, like his short stories in, ‘Darna Mana  Hai’ and ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’ followed by one of India’s finest physcological thriller ‘404: Error Not Found’. He also directed a dud like ‘Gayab’ and wrote another such type of film ‘Darling’. This is his first non-supernatural film and he fails to do proper justice to it. He had a great opportunity to present one of a daring con ever witnessed in our country, but misses out due to the weak screenplay and lethargic narration. 

Performances:

Randeep Hooda highly succeeds in adapting the real life character. His body mannerisms, accent, looks, etc does full justice to his character. Adil Hussain is brilliant and adds up as a second hero in the film. Richa Chadda, Alez O’Neil and Shanu Dev lend good support, but have nothing special to boast about. Mandana Karimi, Vipin Sharma, Tisca Chopra, Heeral Mei and others were wasted. 

So bol meri 'Filmi Khopdi' iss film mein kitna hain Dum???

Dum??? Well, concept wise and basic story wise there is lots of dum, but everything gets fizzled out due to weak screenplay and lethargic direction. It’s not a bad film but, you do feel bad over the lost opportunity, as it had all the potential to become a great film. On an overall basis, ‘Main Aur Charles’ is like a prime time news hour debate which has an interesting topic to start with but ends up with the same routine stuff without giving a proper solution to the main problem.

Ratings - 2*/5

'Guddu Ki Gun' - Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Guddu Ki Gun'

Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Firecracker Shots...'

Expectations:

As a kid Kunal Khemu was loved for his powerful role in ‘Zakhm’ and comical acts in films like ‘Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke’ and ‘Raja Hindustani’. The actor grew up to do some different type of films and found his space back into the comical films with films like ‘99’, ‘Dhol’, ‘Golmaal 3’ and few more including ‘Go Goa Gone’. He was outstanding in the later films and with the failure of his films from other genre made it clear that, the audience wants to see this actor essaying comical roles and thus, despite of low publicity and less known actors associated with it, Kunal’s latest film ‘Guddu Ki Gun’ has some curiosity attached to it. Tough, it’s not a routine comedy Kunal did in past, ‘Guddu Ki Gun’ is an adult comedy with a double meaning poster attached to it. Thus, let’s find out whether this new venture of Kunal into the world of adult comedies will end up in his favour or might damage his fading career further more.

Story:

‘Guddu Ki Gun’ is a story of washing powder salesman Guddu (Kunal Khemu), who sells his product by luring the housewife’s and by full filling their sexual needs. Guddu is happy with his life and support from his roommate Ladoo (Sumeet Vyas). Things change as one fine day Guddu find outs that his private parts have been overnight transformed into hard metal gold. Guddu and Ladoo starts to find out the root cause of this magical transformation and finds out that it’s due to a curse of an old man. They also find out that Guddu’s private parts will normalize only when he finds true love of his life and will be the same if he marries that girl. Thus, Guddu and Ladoo starts to look out for the true love of Guddu and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.

Screenplay & Technicalities:

The one liner story concept is very good for an adult comedy. It’s something unseen and unattempted. There are some comical scenes like Kunal and Sumeet visit sexologist’s clinic, Kunal discusses about his private part with Sumeet, Kunal meeting Payal Sarkar, Sumeet forces Kunal to participate in a competition involving one’s private parts, Kunal and Sumeet kidnapping track, Kunal’s part in Mughal-E-Azam drama (though, others ruin the fun with their overacting) and a few more which manages to tickle your funny bone. There should have been more such comical scenes and that too with more adult humour attached to it. On the flip side, the concept is not properly utilized and at times tries to cross the fine line between vulgarity and adult comedy. The film also slows down with the arrival of love track. One will find some quirky double meaning names like ‘Lingamjitis’, ‘Lingam returns’, ‘Baba Sonekaanand’, etc. The camera work is good and goes in the favour of the film.

Music & Direction:

Music is not impressive and songs acts like bumpers in the film.

Director duo Shreeshank Anand and Shantanu Ray dares to come up with such bold and unusual adult comedy, which lacked highly over the adult humor. They dare to enter the no entry zone only to take a reverse turn and makes a safe exit like all others. The makers should have gone all their way out and should have given us a good adult comedy on the lines of ‘Masti’, ‘Kya Kool Hain Hum’, ‘etc. The movie could have been a decent entertainer, but sadly ends up being a weak and an adult clone of Priyadarshan types of films. The duo fails to keep the film slide away from adult humour to double meaning track due to which the movie ends up being trashy and demeaning at times. 

Performances:

Kunal Khemu does his part with grace and once again shines out in a comical film. Sumeet Vyas lends fantastic support and has a brilliant future ahead. Payel Sarkar, Brijendra Kale, Jameel Khan and others lend good support. 

So bol meri 'Filmi Khopdi' iss film mein kitna hain Dum???

Dum??? Well the movie had good potential to cater its adult comedy loving audiences, but ends up as a half-baked product with over dose of double meaning humour and stale screenplay in the later part of the film. The movie has its moments but on an overall basis this loaded gun, ends up as a firecracker shot with fake sound and its plastic effects. 

Ratings - 1.5*/5

'Welcome To Karachi' Movie Review By G9 Divya Solgama

'Welcome To Karachi' 

Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Lunatics No 1'

Expectations:

We all remember the 'No.1' tag attached to the titles of Govinda and David Dhawan. Along with this, actor-director jodi, two more people were associated with this tag, Karishma Kapoor and producer Vashu Bhagnani. Vashu Bhagnani started his production house with 'Coolie No.1' followed by many super hit films. But after the dream run for five to six years, his films started falling over the box office. After giving around eight to nine disaster films, he introduced his son Jackky Bhagnani in a yet another flop 'Kal Kissne Dekha'. Despite of these flops Vashu Bhagnani came up with one more film 'F.A.L.T.U' which also had his son as the lead role. 'F.A.L.T.U' was a box office hit and thus Vashu Bhagnani made three more films with his son along with two big budget films directed by Sajid Khan - 'Himmatwala' & 'Humshakals'. Vashu Bhagnani's latest film 'Welcome 2 Karachi' again stars his son along with his co-star Arshad Warsi from the movie 'F.A.L.T.U'. Thus, let's find out whether 'Welcome 2 Karachi' will be another sleeper hit like 'F.A.L.T.U' or might add on to the long list of flops and disasters produced by Mr.Bhagnanai.

Story:

'Welcome 2 Karachi' is a story of Shammi Takhur (Arshad Warsi) and Kedar Patel (Jackky Bhagnani) who, while partying, accidently crosses the Indian ocean and land up in Pakistan. There was an incident of bomb blast on that particular day and on that particular place where these two arrive. Pakistani intelligence officer Shazia (Laurel Gottlied) gets hold of Shammi's wallet and starts searching for Shammi and Kedar on the streets of Karachi. Meanwhile, Shammi and Kedar keep wandering right from the Mafia to the Taliban camps where they are trained to become a Taliban assassin. Things become bad to worse and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.

Screenplay & Technicalities:

The story seems super exciting and funny on papers, but while executing it, ends up becoming the opposite of what was expected. There are few hilarious dialogues and funny moments like the whole joke over 3G internet and barb wire, Arshad and Jaccky mistaking Barrack Obama as Nelson Mandela, Arshad and Jaccky at Panjab Da Dhabba followed by Arshad-Jaccky narrating the tale of their Taliban journey and a few more which keeps you lighten up in this highly irritating film. There are back to back boring and idiotic scenes like Jaccky at the US visa office, Arshad-Jaccky partying in the middle of the ocean, Arshad-Jaccky attending press meet at Pakistani cabinet and many such scenes. Besides these bad scenes there are some terrible scenes like Arshad Warsi trying to do a delivery of a woman, the whole fight at the embassy street where the Israelians are firing at Palestinians followed by Iraqi's firing over the Americans along with involvement of many other countries and the climax fight where the Talibani's ambush an aircraft by attacking them at the airport runway. There is no logic or soul in this badly made film. The cinematography and special effects are horrible, especially in the scenes like the boat sinking, fight at the embassy street and in the finale climax part.

Music & Direction:

Music has been an integral part of the Vashu Bhagnani's film. Sadly, in 'Welcome 2 Karachi' the songs fail to impress. The background music is very bad and highly irritating at times.

Director Ashish R Mohan wrote several comical films for Rohit Shetty and directed Akshay Kumar starrer film 'Khiladi 786'. Sadly, in the case of 'Welcome 2 Karachi' he delivers his worst, as the movie fails to impress. Ashish in order to attempt the desi version of 'Dumb & Dumber' takes his audience for granted by inserting an Afgani speaking dialogue with subtitles in Roman Hindi followed by showing posters of only known and released Pakistani films 'Khuda Kay Liye' and 'Ramchand Pakistani'. He dares to deliver back to back worst scenes in the film.

Performances:

Arshad Warsi repeats his "eehh aaahh hoon", type of act which we have been watching for a long long time. He is shown as a Naval officer, but while in Pakistan he is acting like normal simpleton who barely knows about Pakistan, Taliban and the security concerns in Pakistan. Jackky Bhagnani acts decently and impresses you with his one liners in some scenes. Lauren Gottlieb has hardly any scenes and is suddenly shown dancing with Jackky in the end credit songs Pawan Malhotra and Dalip Tahir are wasted. Ayub Khoso is entertaining.

Final Verdict: So bol meri 'Filmi Khopdi' iss film mein kitna hain Dum???

Dum??? Well, besides a few comical moments there is nothing worthy to watch in this boring and insane film. Irrfan Khan was the original choice for this film and at the time of the shooting, he walked out of the film. That's for sure, was the most sensible stuff associated with this movie. Producer Vashu Bhagnani comes up with a yet another master trash film, after giving us trashy aces like 'Humshakals' and 'Himmatwala' due to which this movie should be renamed, 'Lunatics No.1'.

• Ratings - 0.5/5