Sarkar 3~ Triple dose of disappointment

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Amit Sadh, Yami Gautam, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Best Dialogue: "Har acchai ki koi nirdharit keemat hoti hai, who chahe paisa ho, gyan ho, Ya phir dard.. aur dard ki keemat chukani padta hai."

In 2005, Ram Gopal Varma gave us Sarkar where we got an inside look of the family of a feared man, Subhash Nagre who solved everyone’s problems while sipping tea. The film ended with his younger son, Shankar taking on his seat.

In 2008, Ramu made Sarkar Raaj where Sarkar's enemies kill Shankar and Sarkar is forced to return to action and take revenge from them. In the end he’s seen sipping tea with Shankar’s wife Anita hinting that maybe she can become his heir.

When Sarkar 3 was announced we were quite disappointed to know that Aishwarya won't be a part of it. Maybe the film’s budget didn't permit it or maybe the Bachchan bahu was busy shooting for her first 100 Crore film, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

Sarkar 3 had the tagline that Sarkar is back and he’s angrier than ever. But throughout the film not even once we saw his anger or got to hear some dialogue which could make us whistle or clap for him.

Apart from Amitabh Bachchan all other characters are so ordinary that they hardly stand out.

Amid Sadh plays the role of the grandson who may become Sarkar's heir but he shows no energy and says lines like “Sab doodh ke jale hai and chaach ko phoonk ke peete hai” or “ye khel unhone shuru kia hai, khatam mai karunga”. Couldn't the dialogue writer have been a bit more original?

Manoj Bajpai’s entry scene was good but after sometime even his character lost the edge.

Yami Gautam’s character has her own vendetta against Sarkar, for he had her father killed. But throughout the film she’s only shown meeting Amit Sadh for coffee dates and just talking and talking. In most of the scenes she looks like a drug addict.

Jackie Shroff’s character is written on the lines of Vijay Mallya. When he talks to his aides on phone there is always his scantily clad girlfriend in the background who is sometimes feeding the dolphins or just showing off her sun tanned body. Jackie just has to stare at her and say lame dialogues like, “Jis jis ko maine ring di darling, wo sab mar gayi”.

Without any powerful antagonist, Sarkar has nothing left to do and we have to watch a poor version of the same story we saw 12 years back.

To add to our woes there is loud background music blaring in the background along with the Govinda Govinda & Saam daam dand bhed chants.

The film was released in approximately 1500 screens and because of bad reviews and poor word of mouth earned around 7 crores over the weekend. The film will finish around 12 Crores which is even less than what Sarkar made in 2005.

In a line, Sarkar 3 has proved to be the final nail in the coffin of Ram Gopal Verma's creativity and after this big stars like Mr Bachchan will surely stay away from working in his films.
Highly avoidable.

Housefull 3 - Dumb,dumber and dumbest!

Release date- 3rd June 2016

One Word which describes the film- No-brainer

Dumbest Dialogue- 'Hum bacche nahi bana rahe' (We are not kidding)

Genre- Slapstick Comedy

Music-Sohail Sen, Mika Singh, Sharib-Toshi, Tanishk Bagchi, Milind Gaba

Producer-Sajid Nadiadwala

Story & Direction-Sajid-Farhad

Cast- Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nargis Fakhri, Lisa Haydon, Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff, Chunkey Pandey 

Budget- 90 Crores including P & A approximately

Housefull (2010), directed by Sajid Khan was made on a budget of 50 Crores and earned almost 100 Crores at the box office. It's a copy of Tamil movie 'Kaathala Kaathala' starring Kamal Haasan and Prabhu Deva.

Housefull 2: The Dirty Dozen (2012) was also directed by Sajid Khan. It had a budget of 60 Crores and earned almost 120 Crores at the box office.The movie was a remake of 2003 hit Tamil movie Banda Paramasivam.

Housefull 3 is directed by Sajid-Farhad who have written dialogues for many films including Housefull 2,  Bol Bachchan & Chennai Express. It had a huge budget so the makers have used every trick in the book to make it a big film.

There is a huge castle, beach wedding, garden wedding, exotic locations, beautiful heroines in skimpy clothes, yacht parties, car races and even a Madam Tussauds set to add grandeur to the film. Cinematography is excellent and you find yourself in a dream world.

The only problem is that in this dream world all the characters are purposely made to look dumb. There are thieves who steal diamonds without any planning, a side hero who tries to win a car race by running to the finish line, a rap-singer who starts abusing the judges in Hindi when he is rejected and last but not the least three girls who try to keep screwing English phrases by translating them in Hindi.

So when a girl says, 'Kaamwali gayi, kamwali gayi', she means 'let bygones be bygones' , 'Naukri neeche' means 'Calm down' and Saandh ki aankh maarna' means 'Hit the bull's eye'. 

Then there is Boman Irani who still uses  the much used and abused whattsapp jokes like ,'Phal dho ke khane chahiye, dirty to picture bhi hai' or 'Insaan ko humesha khush rehna chahiye. Gambhir toh Gautam bhi hai'. Like in Chennai Express, here too many times the actors start speaking in Gujarati which further breaks the already slow pace of the film.

Akshay Kumar is the most expensive star with a great fan following so he is given the maximum screen space and dialogues and all other artists just seem to give company to him. This one conversation which I think was a bit funny will give you an idea about the level of humor.

Akshay- Kitna loan hai?

Jacky Shroff- 5000 Crore

Akshay- 5000 crore ka loan khud ke liye nahi lete, desh ke liye lete hai.

Though I wonder how he manages to alternatively do films like Singh is Blinng followed by Airlift and then Housefull3 followed by the upcoming Rustom.

Apart from Akshay Kumar, Boman Irani and Chunkey Pandey, Ritesh Deshmukh is the only actor who has been part of all the three films. In earlier films his character was that of a simpleton who gets caught into hilarious situations but here he is made to act dumb by saying dialogues like 'Love is blind ... but in my case the lover is blind' and ' Will you be my tawayaf, i mean wife', which is hardly funny or entertaining.

Abhishek Bachchan's last venture, All Is Well(2015) was a big flop so it's good for him that he got to be a part of this money making franchisee. And as they say, 'Every dog has it's day'. In the last 20 days three films of the Bachchans were released, Aishwarya's Sarbjit, Abhishek's Housefull3 and Amitabh Bachchan's Te3n and we all know which film has entered the 100 Crore club.

Chunkey Pandey is back as 'Aakhiri Pasta' and gets 2-3 scenes where he has to say lame dialogues. It's sad that now everyone knows him by this name instead of remembering him as Baban of Tezaab(1988).

Jacky Shroff must have taken some health tips from son Tiger as he looks fitter and smarter. His role is small and he is not expected to show any great acting skills so he also just parties along with the rest of the star cast.

Though the music is good but again the songs have lyrics like 'pyar ki maa ki' and 'taang utha ke' which any person of reasonable IQ won't like to hum or listen to.

The only saving grace of the film is that there is no vulgarity or abusive dialogues because of which it can be seen with kids and maybe is the only reason why it has earned almost 100 Crores in 10 days.

Sajid Nadiadwala has already declared that Housefull 4 is on the cards so guess till we keep watching such films, the makers will keep cashing on this franchisee and Akshay Kumar's popularity.

In a line, this film is the weakest of the three and has just 3-4 scenes where you will genuinely laugh, so if you have been lucky and avoided the series till now, keep doing so.
If you have nothing better to do and you are a big Akshay Kumar fan then only you should see it.  

Jazbaa ~ Rekindling our passion for dialoguebazi

Release date -9'th October 2015

One Word which describes the film - Electrifying

Best Dialogue - Sharafat ki duniya ka kissa hi khatam, ab jaisi duniya waise hum

Genre - Thriller/ Drama

Music -Amjad-Nadeem, Arko, Badshah

Producer - White Feather Films
Viiking Media & Entertaiment

Story - Remake of the 2007 South Korean film Seven Days

Direction -Sanjay Gupta

Cast -Aishwarya Rai, Irrfan Khan, Shabana Azmi, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Siddhanth Kapoor, Jackie Shroff

Budget- 40 Crores approximately

Sanjay Gupta is known to make action thrillers generally inspired from foreign films. Kaante(2002) was inspired from Reservoir Dogs and Zinda (2006) was a remake of the Korean film Oldboy. Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007) and Shootout at Wadala (2013) were inspired from real incidents. 
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who was last seen in Guzaarish (2010) makes her comeback with Jazbaa. Though the film was supposed to be made for Ashwarya but from starting of the film to its climax it's Irffan Khan's dialogues which steal the show.
The film starts with a senior officer telling Irffan Khan
'Inspector Yohan, tumhara ye Amitabh bachchan look aur tevar yaha kam nahi karega' to which Irffan says ,'To aap bataiye main kya Singham banke ghumu?'
In between he has many other ace liners like 

'Aajkal shareef sirf woh hota hai jiske mobile mein password nahi hota.' 

'Yahan sabka ek hi takia kalam hai, hazar ke note pe bapu ko salaam hai.'

'Main kahan rehta hun, yahan to intezar rehta hai.' and Irffan's personal favorite, 'Mohabbat thi isliye jaane diya..zid hoti toh baahon mein hoti.'

Ashwarya as Advocate Anuradha Verma has done full justice to her role. She is shown as  a true professional when Yohan asks her ,' Tum hamesha guilty logo ka case kyo leti ho?' and she says ,' kyonki begunaah hame afford nahi kar sakte.' 

Later we see a tormented mother when she tells the accused,'Tujhe zara bhi andaza nahi ki ek maa par kya guzarti hai, tera case bhi ek maa lad rahi hai, waqeel nahi.

Shabana Azmi has a small but vital role in the film and she plays it with full ease.

Jackie Shroff has a blink and miss role which could have been done by any junior artist. After giving a strong performance in Brothers, he totally disappoints in this film.

Chandan Roy Sanyal as the convicted guy manages to leave an impact in the minds of the audience even in the presence of the talented Irfan Khan and the beautiful Aishwarya Rai.

Siddhant Kapoor (son of Shakti Kapoor) whom I always fail to recognise is just average.

There are just two songs in the film. The slow song 'Jaane tere shehar' picturised on Irfaan when he is drowning his sorrows in a glass of scotch is quite melodious. The director has also added a dance no. ' Aaj raat ka scene' by Badshah to add some masala to the film.

In a line after a long time we have a film which is fast paced, full of twists and turns and totally entertaining.

Paisa- wasool. Must Watch.

Brothers ~ Over dramatic Warriors

Release date - 14'th August 2015

One Word which describes the film - Melodramatic

Best Dialogue - ' Duniya badi zalim hai Master, dard par hasti hai.'

Genre - Action/ Drama

Music - Ajay-Atul

Producer - Hiroo Yash Johar, 
Karan Johar, Endemol India

Story- Gavin O'Connor, Cliff Dorfman ( Official remake of the 2011 Hollywood film, Warrior)

Direction - Karan Malhotra

Cast - Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jackie Shroff,  Shefali Shah 

Budget- 65-70 Crores approximately

Karan Malhotra made his directorial debut in 2012 with Dharma Productions' Agneepath. This time both Karans are back with a Bollywood version of the 2011 American sports drama film Warriors.
The basic story revolves around two estranged brothers whose entrance into a mixed martial arts tournament forces them to come to terms with their past and each other.
The first half of the film is quite dark and gloomy. We have a shabby Jackie Shroff and a bland Siddharth who move around in slow motion. The director tries to build a story around the main characters but fails to create interest among the audiences. 
We get to see Kareena Kapoor trying to do a Sunny Leone type item dance, 'Mary'. So Karan Johar did give you a Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham at the starting of your career but Bebo, now that you are the Begum of a billionaire you don't need to do such cheap songs to stay in limelight.   
Akshay Kumar and Jacqueline's 6 years relation is shown in a 5 minutes song which reminds of a similar Teri Meri Kahani song from Gabbar is Back showing the flash back of Akshay and Kareena's love story. Afterwards both Akshay and Jacqueline carry the same pained expression in most of the scenes.
Jackie Shroff looks old and haggard but in some scenes he has given such an excellent performance that we forget that he is acting and start sympathizing with the poor father who is repenting for his sins.
After interval the film takes a sudden change and we are literally taken from the darkness to light. There is a big lighted stadium with thousands of people cheering for their first winner of the Right To Fight championship. Raj Zutsi who plays the role of a commentator has some good dialogues and manages to make the repetitive fights entertaining.
The film got a 35% opening and managed to earn around 35 crores in two days which is a little less considering the production houses involved and its big budget. The film didn't receive many positive reviews because of it's over dramatic story and a slow first half.
Akshay Kumar fans must watch this film as he looks fit and has performed most of his martial arts stunts himself. 
If you are a lover of Hollywood films don't watch Brothers hoping to get another Warriors. Watching Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will be a safer bet.
In a line though the first half is quite slow and stretched, the second half makes up for it and you emerge out of the theaters with a smile on your face.
One time watch. Can be seen in theaters.  

Review of Heropanti

Release date – 23'rd May 2014

One Word which describes the film – Entertainer

Best Dialogue -
Prakash Raj: Heropanti karega ?
Tiger- Kya karu yaar...Sabko aati nahi.. Meri jaati nahi

Genre – Action/ Romance

Music – Sajid-Wajid , Manj Musik

Producer- Sajid Nadiadwala

Story -Sanjeev Dutta

Direction -Sabbir Khan

Cast -Tiger Shroff ,Prakash Raj , Kriti Sanon , Sandeepa Dhar

Budget- 25- 30 Crores

'Mirror mirror on the wall , who's the fairest one of all ?'

This is the thought which came in every one's mind when we saw the first promos of Heropanti . Tiger Shroff with his milk and peaches complexion , rosy lips ,chiseled face and broad smile soon became the topic of whattsapp jokes and people started trolling him by comparing him with Kareena and other fair ladies. 

Basically there is nothing new in the story and the film takes inspiration from all Bollywood films you must have seen over the years . 

There is a song shot in snow covered mountains where the heroine dances around in dazzling sarees and sleeveless blouses. The hero watches the heroine eating something and falls in love with her. The hero's shirt automatically disappears while the villain is beating him. There are the friends who get tortured every now and then. There is the hero who tells the heroine to do what her heart wants and the list goes on.

So how does one manages to leave a mark in a very ordinary story. This is where Tiger stands tall and outshines everyone. The confidence he shows in the film comes from hours and hours of practice and the knowledge that he is perfect in what he is doing. His dance moves are smooth , his stunts look realistic , his body language relaxed and he manages to give just the right expression in all the scenes. The writer has woven the story around him in such a way that from start to end Tiger does just Heropanti , he doesn't do any work , his family is not shown, we don't even know if he stays with his parents or in some hostel. 

Sabbir Khan who made his directorial debut with Kambakkht Ishq (2009) has managed to give Bollywood an athletic action hero who can give Vidyut Jamwal , another action hero and martial artist ,  a run for his money.

Kriti's job in the film is to look pretty and dance along with the hero. She provides the required glamour but doesn't leave any mark on our mind.

Prakash Raj's character is the most confusing character in the film. Initially he is shown as a ruthless Haryanvi who kills people in cold blood and can go to any extent to save his family honour. But as the film progresses he turns into an emotional father who cries and gives long speeches about his love for his children . It was like we were witnessing a person facing a double personality disorder.

The film has collected over 30 crores in 5 days which is a very good number considering the way the critics and the classes shunned the film.

According to Amir Khan and other celebrities ' A star is born ' and  guess a happy Jacky Shroff can finally relax and enjoy his son's success. 

In a line the film is a full masala entertainer with the perfect dose of action , comedy , drama , music and dance.

Timepass . Can be seen in theaters.