Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Bheja Fry (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 4/5

Cast: Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Sarika, Ranvir Shorey, Milind Soman
Director: Sagar Ballary



A brilliant movie, tight script, flowing screenplay, interesting story, and brilliant acting makes Bheja Fry a must watch movie this summer. All the actors in this movie are not mainline actors but their performance can put the best of best to shame. And so moving on with the story...

Ranjeet Thadani (Rajat) is a music producer married to Sheetal (Sarika) a singer. Ranjeet and his friends get together every Friday for a party. This is a different kind of party where they invite a talent who is not so talented and ridicule them behind the scenes. They enjoying doing it so much that they even don't mind missing out on family appointments.

One of Ranjeet's friend meets Bharat Bhushan (Vinay) on a trip to Pune and decides that he could probably be a source of entertainment for Ranjeet. Ranjeet promptly calls Bharat and invites him for dinner.

Bharat is a talkative self promoting singer who carries with him a scrap book showcasing his musical life. He is excited at the prospect of meeting a music producer which might help advance his career as a singer. Bharat has heart that wants to help everyone but also has the ability to mess things up for people around him. He can be annoying for the person who is sitting next to him but make it a funny experience for the rest watching him.

Friday arrives but Ranjeet's back is sprained badly and is restricted from moving around. Ranjeet knows that he will not be able to make it to the party but still decides to meet with Bharat to see how good or rather bad he is.

The minute Bharat steps into Ranjeet's house, Ranjeet's life cascades into a series of confusion and tension which forms the crux of the story.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Chennai 600028 (2007) - Tamil Movie Review

Ranking: 3.75/5


Director: Venkat Prabhu

Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja


Cast and Corresponding Character in the Movie


Prassanna - Shanmugham - Software Engineer

Ranjith - Imran, a Gym body

Vijay - Gopi - Mechanic (Guy with the Bat)

Premji Amaran - Seenu,owner of the department store(Family Business)

Aravindh Aakash - Aravindh - He works at a coffee shop

Shiva (Radio Mirchi RJ) - Karthick - Team captain & brother of local head

Jai - Raghu - Moves from Rockers to Sharks.

Nithin Sathya - Pazhani - Captain in the final - (brother of Selvi)

Ajay Raj - Ezhumazhai - Ambulance driver,owns 2 ambulances

Arun - Uday - Gets into fights for nothing at all

Karthick - Arivu - A College going student

Christine - Shwetha - Aravindh's Girl Friend

Vijayalakshmi - Selvi - Pazhani's sister and Karthik's girl friend

Ilavarasu - Manohar - Sharks team's manager,owns a saloon

Sampath - Guna - Karthik's brother,the area's head


Story


The movie is about two small local cricket leagues that comepete against each other in local matches and consider each other as sworn enemies. Royapuram Rockers are on top of the chain and keep bashing Sharks year after year. The heroes of the movie are the Sharks team. This movie has cricket as the central theme but that is not all the movie has to offer. It is a story of love, betrayal, friendship, and victory.

The story begins when Raghu's parents move from Royapuram to Chennai 600 028. Raghu, a college student living with his parents has no choice but to move with them although he detests the choice. He is not very excited at the prospect of living in the same area as his sworn enemies. Raghu is faithful to his old team Rockers but his team mates ignore him because of the distance. Angered at being replaced by a new guy in the team Raghu estranges himself from cricket and Rockers. As days go by he makes friends with a few Sharks team players and eventually gets induced into the team. Raghu practices with Sharks to play against Rockers in the upcoming Radio Mirchi trophy.

Raghu is the reason for Pazhani's sister Selvi and Karthick falling in love. Pazhani is disappointed that his friend would fall in love with his sister and that Raghu was the middle man for the union. The team splits up for a while. But Karthick apologises to Pazhani and they make up. The team is united again and they start practicing for the trophy once again. Unfortunately, Karthick gets stabbed by his brother's enemies and is rendered unfit to play the match. Pazhani replaces Karthick as the captain and the team heads for the match.

Under tight pressure and with a nail biting finish Sharks finally defeat Rockers in the semi-finals of the tournament. Every bit of the cricket tournament portrayed here is done so in a very light and entertaining manner. It is far from boring.

In the finals they meet their nemesis, a bunch of school kids who practice by cutting school classes to play cricket in the beach. The kids are really good and the Sharks know it because they have lost to them once before and that too very badly...the movie ends with the team really struggling to keep it up in the game.

All loose ends are tied up and the end is also funny and has a positive note.

It is a humorous representation of life in an average girl or boy's life in Chennai. Although no one in this movie is an established actor the performance of the all the fresh faces are commendable. It is a fresh story and a clean story that is enjoyable from start to finish.

SPB Charan has done a great job in Chennai 600028 compared to Mazhai. Venkat Prabhu has become a famous director in the film industry because of this galli-cricket movie.Premji Amaran has also done a good job in both comedy and the bacground score. Yuvan's foot-tapping music has a great craze on the youngsters. The lyrics by Gangai Amaran and Vali have also got some fame.


Songs


Jalsa: Ranjith,Tippu,Premji Amaran,Haricharan,Karthik

Ulla Vaa :DJ Saathiya,Silverstar,Yuvan Shankar Raja

Oh Oh Ennanamo:Anushkaa

Natpukkalae:Yuvan Shankar Raja

Saroja Saman Nikalo :Shankar Mahadevan,Premji Amaren

Un Parvai:Vijay Yesudas

Yaaro:SPB,K.S.Chitra

Yaaro:SPB Charan,Venkat Prabhu

Jalsa (Remix):Sabesh,Gana Ulaganathan,Gana Pazhani,Karunaas,Premji Amaren

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Life In A Metro (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 4/5

Cast: Shilpa Shetty, Kay Kay Menon, Kangana Ranaut, Sharmaan Joshi, Shiney Ahuja, Konkona Sen Sharma, Irfan Khan, Nafisa Ali, Dharmendar
Director: Anurag Basu
Music: Pritam


The story depicts how our lives in metro cities are changing with the advent of Call center jobs and busy lifestyles. It is a brilliant depiction of busy life mingled with adultery, friendship, love, lust, and so on...a really well directed venture with a tight screenplay that keeps the pace of movie fast throughout.

Shikha (Shilpa) and Ranjith (Kay Kay) have been married for nine years with a daughter and they have lost of the love they once shared because of their busy lifestyles. They are always at loggerheads with each other and rarely agree on anything.

Rahul (Sharmaan) works in a call center during night and lives in his uncle's well furnished apartment. To climb the corporate ladder quickly he lets out his apartment to his bosses to carry on with their illicit affairs. Rahul has his eye set for Neha (Kangana) who works in the same office and he is crazily in love with her.

Neha on the other hand has an affair with her already married boss Ranjith. Ranjith promotes Rahul to become a Junior Manager while he uses the apartment to spend time with Neha. Rahul has no idea that his boss is sleeping with the girl of his dreams.

Neha and Shruthi (Konkona) are roomates. Shruthi is Shikha's sister. Shruthi goes through the arranged marriage system of meeting men and rejecting them. She meets Monty and rejects him instantly because she catches him checking out her bossom. Shruthi who works for Radio Mirchi likes Vishey K, the host of one of her shows. Her boss sets her up with Vishey and she also meets his parents and things are going well between them...until one day she finds Vishey and her boss in bed together.

Shikha visits her dance teacher Amma (Nafisa) every Saturday at the old age home. Shikha meets Aakash (Shiney) there and they both bond and share a good relationship which borders on love.

Amma also has her story...Anmol (Dharmendar), Amma's love from past comes back to live with her because his days are numbered and he wants to spend it with his true love. This is the only corny part in the story.

Now that I have given a brief introduction to everyone's life story...the rest of the movie develops into how all of them come close into affecting each other's life and how they solve their problems or work around it.

Must watch this one...all I can say is that this movie handled the subject of adultery, sex, lust, love, etc, much better than any of Karan Johar's movie ever did.

Mozhi (2007) - Tamil Movie Review

Ranking: 4.5/5

Cast: Prithviraj, Jyothika, Prakash Raj, Swarnamalya, Brahmanandam
Director: Radha Mohan
Music: Vidyasagar


A brilliant story. Must watch! Great casting, music, acting, directing, screenplay, etc. A fresh movie after a long time in Tamil. I am glad that it might be made in Hindi too...

Karthik (Prithviraj) and Viji (Prakash Raj) are good friends working in the music industry as keyboard players. Both of them are single. Karthik believes in love at first sight when the lights will go on, the bells will ring, so on and so forth...and true to it he falls in love with Jyothika the very first time he sees her. And to his luck she lives in the same apartment complex where Karthik just moved into.

When he finally gets to talk to her he realizes that she is deaf and mute. Karthik does not see it and he knows that he will be in love with her regardless of her disabilities. With the help of her friend Sheela, Karthik learns sign language and does everything guys do to impress girls. Finally he expresses his love for her which gets rejected...

The rest of the story narrates how he wins her back...Prakash Raj and Swarnamalya also play a very important role in the movie. Actually, there is no character in the movie that is useless. Everyone is there for a reason and the comic narrative style of the movie is a highlight. Even the sad moments are not totally sad but have a degree of humor in them.

If you have not seen this one yet...then you are loosing out on one of Tamil industry's gems.

Ratings by outbrain