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.

Ugly - It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World

Release date - 26'th December 

2014
One Word which describes the film -Dark

Best Dialogue - 

Chaitanya-'Sir,actor log aisa karte hai ki ghar par ek naam aur parde par doosra.'
Inspector Jadhav- Accha, to Amitabh Bachchan ka ghar ka naam kya hai.'

Genre - Suspense/Thriller 

Music -G. V. Prakash Kumar

Producer - DAR Motion Pictures, Phantom Films

Story & Direction -Anurag Kashyap

Cast -Rahul Bhat, Ronit Roy, Girish Kulkarni, Siddhanth Kapoor, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh, Vipin Sharma, Surveen Chawla

Budget- 5-6 crores (approximately)

The film starts with a depressed and alcoholic woman contemplating ways to end her life. The first thought which comes in our mind is maybe she considers herself ugly. But slowly as the plot unfolds we come to know that the film is about the wicked ways of the world and how darkness resides inside every individual which overcomes all love and relations.

The story is about the people in the life of a woman, her daughter, her husband, her ex-husband, her brother and her friend. The woman's daughter disappears which lead to an array of events which show the selfishness, cruelty and wickedness of the lead characters.

Ronit Roy is perfect as the head of police detection unit. He is ruthless, shows no mercy and trusts no one. 

Rahul Bhat plays the role of a struggling actor. Though this is his first film he has given stiff competition to Ronit Roy in their scenes together.

Tejaswini is waiting for her Bollywood debut since 2000 but sadly her debut film Paanch, also directed by Anurag Kashyap was never released in theaters. She plays the role of a depressed housewife perfectly. 

Surveen Chawla is the eye candy of the film. 

Siddhant Kapoor has a small role and in one scene where he does a crazy dance he looks exactly like his father Shakti Kapoor.

Vineet Kumar plays the role of a casting director who plays an important role in the lives of the lead actors.

Marathi actor Girish Kulkarni is superb as Inspector Jadhav. His body language and expressions are just perfect. There is subtle humor in his scenes. 

With these characters Anurag has written an intriguing story where he takes us on a roller coaster ride through the streets of Mumbai where we go through different emotions and feelings which at times make us doubt the sanctity of various relations we make in our lifetime.

The film has all the features of a typical Kashyap film, lots of violence, abuses, drama, twists along with a strong message.

Ugly has been in news since last year as the Indian Censor Board required a "Smoking is Injurious to Health" sign to be flashed whenever a character in the film is shown smoking but Anurag Kashyap fought this regulation stating, ' It's the Health Ministry that should take the responsibility of curbing use of tobacco and work towards measures to control it and films should not be a medium to advertise non-smoking.'

Finally the film is released along with the statutory warning but Kashyap could not have chosen a worse time for release. The cold waves in the North kept the audience away from theaters and those who went chose to watch last week's much acclaimed release 'PK' 

In a line the film has a dark and disturbing story, full of violence and cuss words and is surely not meant for the romantics or weak-hearted.

Watch at your own risk. Can be seen if you like dark thrillers.

Review of 2 States

Release date –18'th April  2014

One Word which describes the film – Melodrama

Best Dialogue - ' Baat communities  ki nahi hai..baat ye hai ki kis tarah ke insaan ke sath hum apni jindagi bitana chahte hain'

Genre – Romance / Comedy

Music – Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy 

Producer- Karan Johar , Sajid Nadiadwala

Story - Chetan Bhagat

Direction Abhishek Varman

Cast - Arjun Kapoor , Alia Bhatt , Ronit Roy , Amrita Singh , Revathy , Shiv Kumar Subramaniam

Budget- 35 Crores

2 States is the love story of Punjabi guy Krish and Tamil Brahmin girl Ananya .

Abhishek Varman who has been an assistant director in films like  'Jodha Akbar' , 'My Name Is Khan' and 'Student of the Year ' has made his directorial debut with this film .
The first half where the two meet and gradually fall in love is interesting and colorful but after interval the film becomes repetitive ,  slow and dull. 

In the first half , the boy tells the girl that he wants to be a writer because he believes that 'Story mein hero na ho, story hero honi chahiye .'
Contrary to this line , there is a hero in this film who manages to save it and it is Alia Bhatt . She manages to outshine not only the other supporting actors but also the main protagonist . She looks beautiful , confident , and radiates the tension she is going through in trying to create a balance between her lover and her parents . 

Arjun Kapoor , on the other  hand manages to portray the same expressions through out the film. He tells his girlfriend that his mother has always been there for him but still when the scene demands he is neither able to express his love for her or his anger for not understanding what he wants. 

Amrita Singh , Revathy, Ronit Roy and Shiv Kumar have given decent performances but not much importance is given in building their characters so we are kept wondering why the boy's father sulks all the time or why his mother couldn't decide whether she wants to please her son or her husband or the society.

Whereas Alia Bhatt's last critically acclaimed film , 'Highway'  struggled to cover it's production cost , 2 States has managed to earn a cool 40 Crores plus at the Box Office in just 4 days which shows that audience prefer popcorn entertainment over serious soul searching films.  

In a line, the film is a scene by scene representation of the novel so if you have read the book there is nothing new there , except the pretty Alia Bhatt.
Timepass . 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)