Parmanu~ Killing me softly..

Cast: John Abraham, Diana Penty, Boman Irani

Director: Abhishek Sharma

On 11 May 1998, Operation Shakti was initiated with the detonation of one fusion and two fission bombs. Later in a press conference Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared India a full-fledged nuclear state.

An event of such high magnitude and significance which made India a powerful force to reckon with required a much better portrayal on screen. The film could have created history if more importance was given to the story and screenplay than on John Abraham's lopsided smile.

First half is slow where the viewers are introduced to John Abraham's personal life and professional struggles which have no connection to the mission. A good writer could have outlined it in short and focused on the actual story. Boman Irani's entry adds some energy into a dull and lifeless film.

Diana Penty has few scenes and gets no scope to show her acting skills.

The story moves from Delhi to Mussoorie to Pokhran along with real TV footage of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, US President Bill Clinton and ex Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto to add facts to a fictitious story.

The successful mission was a result of the hard work of numerous agencies, scientists and engineers, who worked in absolute secrecy for decades but in the film the success is owed to a team of 5 people, occasional patriotic dialogues and lucky coincidences.

The last 20 minutes of the film managed to create a sense of urgency and the climax itself made the film worth a one time watch. Audiences would have totally ignored John's lethargic acting if the full film was as pacy and action packed as the climax.

In a line, Parmanu is not a film for fans of John Abraham but for those who have no idea of what happened in 1998.

Can be seen in theaters.

Dishoom- Just another Bollywood Masala flick

Release date- 29th July 2016

One Word which describes the film- Masala entertainer

Best Dialogue- "Jab jab hamne aapse pyar karne ki kosish ki aapne apne daam badha liye."

Genre- Action

Music- Pritam

Producer-Sajid Nadiadwala
Sunil A Lulla

Story & Direction- Rohit Dhawan

Cast- John Abraham, Varun Dhawan, Akshaye Khanna, Jacqueline Fernandez, Saqib Saleem

Budget- 45-50 Crores approximately

Rohit Dhawan made his directorial debut through Desi Boyz in 2011. After 5 years we get another film from him which is just like his earlier film having all the elements supposed to be there in a Bollywood blockbuster like top stars, foreign locations, scantily dressed heroines, peppy dance numbers and big sets. But all these factors can not mask the fact that the film lacks an engaging screenplay which totally loses appeal in the second half. Like in the first film there is bromance between John and Varun. We have Pariniti in place of Bruna Abdullah doing a really bad item number 'Jaaneman Aah'. Like Sanjay Dutt did a really insignificant role of the owner of a Gigolo firm in Desi Boyz, here we have Akshay Kumar playing the role of a gay guy who is more interested in noticing Varun Dhawan's assets, even using the corny pickup line, 'Your father must have been a baker, cause you've got a nice set of buns'. 
Varun Dhawan and Akshay Khanna have managed to give some decent performances but John and Jacqueline as usual just manage to get whistles from the front benchers.
There is an item number Sau Tarah Ke, picturised on Jacquelin Fernandez, John Abraham and Varun Dhawan shot in Morocco with 200 junior dancers.  There is also a helicopter action sequence which is said to be shot in real time without any body doubles. If this much attention was given to the story we could have got a good film which had repeat value.
Desi Boyz got an opening of 9 Crores in 2011. Now when the ticket prices have almost doubled and the screens have also increased Dishoom getting an opening of 11 Crores can not be called as an achievement.
In a line, Dishoom is just another attempt of making money by just bringing all the elements together in a weak story and offers nothing new to the audiences.
Time-pass.

Welcome Back ~ Good dialogues in a Bad story

Release date - 4'th September 2015

One Word which describes the film - Hilarious

Some of the LOL Dialogues - 

John Abraham- 'Mobile uska, sim apun ka .. tu beech mein missed call dene waala kaun.'

John's friend- 'Bhabhi ne aapko Emraan Hashmi samjha aur aap Amol Palekar nikley.' 

Anil Kapoor - 'Aapki sharafat ke chakkar mein main kayde mein hoon, warna ab tak mere khud ke do char Al-Qaiday hote

Nana Patekar- 'Majnu, mai samajh gaya hoon is duniya mai do hi cheezo ki keemat hai, ek to zameeno ki doosri kameeno ki.'

Naseeruddin Shah- 'Yaha ke kanoon bhi hum hai aur andhe bhi hum hai.'

Music -Meet Bros Anjjan, Anu Malik, Mika Singh, 

Producer - Firoz Nadiadwala

Story- Anees Bazmee, Rajiv Kaul

Dialogues - Raaj Shaandilyaa (dialogues)

Direction -Anees Bazmee

Cast -Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Paresh Rawal, Shruti Haasan, Dimple Kapadia, Ankita Shrivastava, Shiney Ahuja

Budget- 65-70 Crores

It's always a low risk proposition to make a sequel of a hit film as the audience is already familiar with the characters and those who loved the first one enthusiastically wait for the next. It took 8 years for this sequel to hit the theaters and to refresh the memory of the viewers the narrator shows flash backs from Welcome(2007). In these years the feared Bhais have become 'shareef ' and 'pehle jinke naam ka sikka chalta tha ajkal unke not bhi log chura ke le jate hai.'
Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar are the heart and soul of this film.They have great on screen chemistry and have given a wonderful performance. In the second half when the story becomes really slow and boring it's their acting and expressions which keeps the audience rooted to their seats.
John Abraham may have made a lot of progress as a producer but as an actor his face is expressionless and his dialogues flat. He gets ample opportunity to show his fit body and thus keeps his fans happy.
Shruti Haasan gives tough competition to John and stays expressionless throughout the film. Her dialogue delivery is even worse than John. More attention is paid on her dresses and hairstyles than on her acting.
New actress Ankita has a meatier role than Shruti and gets more scenes to show her body of work (pun intended) . Right from her costumes to her dialogues to her co-actors, she got a better deal and so manages to outshine Shruti.
Paresh Rawal, Dimple Kapadia and Naseeruddin Shah have significant roles in the film and have done their best.
Shiny Ahuja's comeback in a small insignificant role was not a very wise decision as now he has totally lost all chances of being casted as a hero or even as a supporting hero in any good film.
The first of the film is quite entertaining and you will laugh in most of the scenes. After interval because of the lack of story and presence of too many characters the film starts losing steam and we wonder what new twist will be presented to us. The climax totally disappoints.
The highlight of the film without any doubt is it's dialogues written by Raaj Shaandilyaa. Raaj who makes his Bollywood debut has earlier written for Comedy Circus and Comedy Nights with Kapil.
The film is mostly shot in 5 star hotels. In most of the scenes we are shown plush rooms with golden sofas, big chandeliers and rich surroundings. When the characters move out of their luxurious rooms they sit in their Ferrari, Rolls-Royce or Mercedes.
There is a medley of songs in this film but none of the song is melodious or has lyrics worth mentioning.
The film was released in 3200 screens and despite bad reviews it managed to earn above 50 crores over the weekend. After the poor performances of Brothers, All is Well and Phantom this film has come as a breath of relief for the distributors thus proving that in India there is a good market for brainless comedies. 

In a line if you don't pay much attention to the story the Uday Shetty and Majnu duo will surely keep you entertained.

Time-pass. Can be seen in theaters. 

Review of Shootout at Wadala

Release date – 3'rd May 2013 

One Word which describes the film – Triple A

Best  Dialogue – 

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

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)

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.

The film is based 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.

Sanjay Gupta who has returned to direction after 8 years has left no stone unturned to make this film a commercial hit. 
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 a 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.

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 .
Rank- 9 (out of the 26 films I have seen in 2013)

Review of I Me aur Main

 Release date – 1’st March 2013

One line which describes the film –

"All that glitters is not gold "

Best  Dialogue –

'We are Men. Hum apni territory mark kar rahe hai .'

Genre – Romance / Drama

Story -  Devika Bhagat

Music – Falak Shabir , Sachin-Jigar , Gourav Dasgupta , Raghav Sachar

Producer -  Goldie Behl , Shrishti Behl Arya

Direction - Kapil Sharma

Cast - John Abraham , Prachi Desai , Chitrangada Singh , Raima Sen , Mini Mathur 

Budget – 20 crores (approximately)

As the film title suggest the film revolves around a self centered , immature , compulsive flirt , commitment phobic guy whose phone's voice message says 'Hi, this is Ishaan Sabharwal… If it’s good looking, it’s me!'  His reason for justifying a a 3 years live in relation is as lame as  "We looked so good together"

The central character has shades of  Akash from Dil Chahta Hai (2001) , Karan from  Lakshya (2004) , Sid from  Pyaar Ke Side Effects (2006) and Sidharta from  Wake Up Sid (2009) . The difference is whereas all the above actors did complete justice to their roles , John 's acting  fails to leave any impact on the viewers . 

Why should you see this film-

1.Your wife / girlfriend still has a crush on John Abraham .

2. Your husband / boyfriend thinks Chitrangada is hot 

3. You like the cute Prachi Desai

4. You liked some songs in the film's promos.

5. The film is just 1hour 48 min lng so you won't get bored.  

Why should  you skip this film - 

1. John is a better  producer (Vicky Donor ) than actor. He is tolerable in multi starrers ( Housefull 2 , Race 2 , New York ,  Dostana , Dhoom ) but his solo films have been a disaster. ( Jhootha Hi Sahi  , No Smoking ) 

2. Chitrangada has a very small role in the film ,it's more like an extended special appearance .

3. Prachi Desai is good as the bubbly make up artist but her character in the story comes out as too good to be true .

4. The story and screenplay are weak which result in lack of drama and  sudden  twists in the story .

5. The film has no moral , it is just a mirror of the lifestyles of the current generation who believe in casual relations .

In a line the film has nothing new for the audience and there are many Indian and Hollywood TV serials which have hotter and better dressed stars .

Avoidable.

Rank - 9 (Out of the 14 films I have seen in 2013 )