MLTR - Rajneeti

RAJNEETI REVIEW

Starring:

• Ranbir Kapoor as Samar Pratap
• Arjul Rampal as Prithviraj "Prithvi" Pratap
• Manoj Bajpai as Veerendra Pratap
• Ajay Devagan as Sooraj Kumar
• Katrina Kaif as Indu Pratap
• Nana Patekar as Brij Gopal
• Nikhila Trikha as Bharti Rai
• Naseeruddin Shah as Bhaskar Sanyal

Directer: Prakash Jha,
Music: Wayne Sharpe
Cinematography: Sachin Krishn

A modern re-telling of Mahabharata, Rajneeti has all the ingredients to keep you engrossed throughout the movie. Imagine the role of Chanakya being performed by one of the Pandavas himself, and you got yourself a very interesting storyline. A very vivid portrayal of our country's political affairs, Rajneeti shows how everything is fair in love, war and politics. Bhanu Pratap, the leader of Rashtrawadi political party, suffers from an heart-attack during a crucial moment before an impending state election, leaving him paralyzed and hence, preventing him to continue as the party president. In his absence, he appoints his brother Chandra Pratap and his son  Prithvi Pratap to be in charge for the party affairs. This leaves Veerendra Pratap, son of Bhanu Pratap, furious as Veerendra believes that he is the rightful heir to the party's throne. Veerendra Pratap is at odds with every decision made by his uncle, including the appointment of the party candidate to Azad Nagar constituency, culminating in a friendship between the local dalit leader Sooraj Kumar and Veerendra Pratap. It is told in a flashback that Sooraj Kumar is actually the son of Bharti Rai, wife of Chandra Pratap, and was born out of wedlock when she shared a moment of passion with her political guru and leftist leader Bhaskar Sanyal. Brij Gopal, brother of Bharti, wraps the child in a cloth and abandons him in a boat. This child was found by a Dailt family and is being raised as one of their own. Because of his valor, Sooraj Kumar quickly becomes the favorite of Azad Nagar.

Samar Pratap, the younger brother of Prithvi Pratap, doesn't wish to be a part of the family politics, and hence decides to go back to New York to finish his PhD. After Chandra Pratap sends off Samar at the airport, he is assassinated on the way to his home by an unidentified gunman. This makes Samar to postpone his trip and come back  to be with his family. Prithvi Pratap becomes furious at the lack of security of his father which led to his assassination, and vents his anger at the police officers. Prithvi is then taken into custody, and while in jail, he is also filed under charge of rape on one of his estranged woman party member. Samar understands that these moves against his family are being made by Veerendra and Sooraj. Samar, with the assistance of his uncle Brij Gopal, vows to take revenge. And thus starts the tale of Rajneeti of Samar Pratam.
By meticulous planning, Samar makes all charges against Prithvi Pratap to be dropped, and makes Prithvi the Chief Minister-nominee of the party. However, Veerendra manages to convince his paralyzed father  Bhanu Pratam to sign an edict that dismisses Prithvi Pratap from the party. This is exactly the outcome Samar wanted, and he, along with his brother and his uncle Brij, floats a new party in direct opposition Rashtrawadi political party. However, Samar finds it difficult to garner the required funds to manage the party. He then manages to convince Indu, who has a huge crush on Samar, to marry Prithvi to assure the funding worth 50 crores from Indu's father as Indu's father would only lend his hand to the person who would eventually become the candidate for chief minister.

Exit polls indicate Prithvi to be the forerunner for the chief minister post, and this makes Veerendra angry for not being able to fulfill his dream of becoming a chief minister. Sooraj kumar, unable to see the sorry state of his friend and mentor Veerendra, arranges a successful plot to kill Prithvi in a bomb blast, leaving only Samar and Indu as the heirs of Chandra Pratap's legacy. Samar then convinces Indu to run for the elections as the chief minister nominee, and she is shown to be able to sway the emotions of the mass to her side. Meanwhile, Bharti Rai meets Sooraj Kumar and reveals the true lineage of Sooraj. Sooraj, though moved by his discovery of his real parents and siblings, is still unflinching in his support of Veerendra Pratap.

Samar finally decides to end the family war once and for all, and arranges for a scheme to entice Veerendra Pratap to come to a secluded place without his cohorts. Sooraj is intimated of the sudden departure of Veerendra, and realizing something is amiss, he follows Veerendra. After making Veerendra to come out his car, Samar and his party people try to shoot down Veerendra. Even though Sooraj has a chance to take down Samar, he flinches for a moment perhaps due to his new found brotherhood, and gives a chance for Samar to escape. However, one of the bullets hits Veerendra in his chest, and Sooraj, realizing that the only chance of Veerendra to survive is to immediately take him to hospital, tries to make a deal with Samar wherein Veerendra and Sooraj will relinquish all of their political ambitions in exchange of Veerendra's life. However, Veerendra dies on the arms of Sooraj, and Brij Gopal convinces Samar that the only way to end this feud is to kill Sooraj too. Samar, still unaware that Sooraj is his brother, kills him, hence, bringing this "Kurukshetra" to an end. Indu is shown as becoming the chief minister, and Samar leaves his politics behind to leave to New York.

All of the characters have performed really well, including the perennial underachiever Arjun Rampal. However, the break-out characters out of the ensemble cast are Manoj Bajpai and Ranbir Kapoor. Manoj Bajpai adds his own elements of acting to skillfully portray the ambitious Veerendra Pratap. Ranbir Kapoor, portraying Samar Pratap, gives one of his best performances to this date. In contrast to his chocolate boy image, Ranbir Kapoor is shown as a shrewd mind, and who would go to any extent to protect his family and his party's ambitions. And how can I forget to mention the transformation of Katrina Kaif from an ultra-modern girl to a Sonia Gandhi-esque politician. Overall, I found the movie to be very enjoyable and definitely a paisa vasool.

As mentioned above, the story line is very similar to that of Mahabharata, albeit with few changes. Some similarities and contrasts that I am able to find:
1. The role of Nana Patekar is very similar to that of. Bhishma. However, unlike Bhishma, Nana Patekar is on the side of  Samar Pratap (the Pandavas)
2. Unlike Mahabarata in which there were 100 Gauravas and 5 Pandyas, there is only 1 Gaurava (Manoj Bajpai) and 2 Pandavas (Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor) in Rajneeti
3. Arjun's character resembles to Yudhistra, and Ranbir's that of Arjun. However, I find that Ranbir's character is also show to have the characteristics of Chankya. The absence of a visible Chanakya type character in support of Manoj Bajpai only strengthens my point of view.
4. Ajay Devagan as Sooraj is the modern avatar of Karna. The resemblances are uncanny. For example, Karna's adopted father was a Charioteer, where as Sooraj's adpoted father is a car driver for the Prataps. Also, as Karna's anger against Pandavas gets dissolved when Kunti reveals his true lineage, so does Ajay's anger against Samar Pratam, making Ajay to exhibit reluctance to shoot Samar when he had a choice. While Duryodhana makes Karna the King of Anga, Veerendra Pratap gives Sooraj one of the posts in party high-commission.

MLTR - Iron Man 2 Review

IRON MAN 2 REVIEW

Cast:
•    Robert Downey Jr.  as Tony Stark and Iron Man
•    Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts
•    Don Cheadle as Lt. Colonel James “Rhodie” Rhodes
•    Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff a.k.a Natalie Rushmann
•    Mickey Rourke as  Ivan Wanko a.k.a Whiplash
•    Samuel Jackson as Major Fury
Director: Jon Favreau

Story:
Robert Downey Jr reprises his role as Tony Stark and the not-so-secret-anymore-superhero Iron Man, and so does Gwyneth Paltrow as his secretary, Virginia “Pepper” Potts. The story is simple: Ivan Vanko, whose father Anton Vankow, a scientist of Stark Industries who was arrested and deported to Russia on the charges of cash in on illegal technology transfers while working under Tony Stark’s father Howard Stark, has vowed to revenge for his father’s impecunious death. Apparently, Anton also has a blue print of the arc reactor, which he gives it to Ivan before he dies. Ivan takes six months to build his own version of the arc reactor, and transforms his persona to Whiplash. His only aim is to bring down Iron Man.

Meanwhile, a senate committee led by Senator Stern is claiming that the arc reactor technology that is powering the Iron Man suit is a matter of National Security and hence should be handed over to the government. Tony Stark argues that other governments are at least a decade away from recreating this technology and refuses to hand it over.

Ivan Wanko shows up in a race at Circuit De Monaco with his "whip" and attacks Stark and other participants. Even though Stark quickly transforms to Iron Man with the help of his Iron Man suitcase, the damage has already been done. The world has witnessed that the arc reactor technology is no more a one-man secret which is more than enough for Senator Stern to maneuver the government to order the confiscation of Stark’s miniature arc reactor technology. Ivan Wanko is put in a French Jail, only for Justin Hammer, CEO of Hammer Technologies and a rival of Stark, to arrange an elaborate escape plan for Wanko, who is now presumed to be dead due to an explosion in his cell.

Along with Wanko, Stark is facing another nemesis within him. He is continuously being poisoned from the Iron Man suit because of its use of the Palladium core. He must find an alternate element soon else he would die of toxicity. He throws up a lavish birthday party, which he presumes to be his last, and makes a ruckus only to alienate his best friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes, who is under order to bring the arc reactor technology from Tony Stark. In the ensuing fight between Stark and Rhodes, both of them in Iron Man suits, Rhodes prevails, and carries his suit to a military base. To Rhodes dismay, the suit is handed over to Justin Hammer to make large scale military robots powered by arc reactor technology.

On the next day, Nick Fury who is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D meets Tony and tells him that Tony’s father Howard was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D and hands over his father’s possession to him. Fury believes that the secret in finding an alternative to the Palladium core could lie within these materials. Having failed to find an alternative element from the exhaustive list of all known elements, Stark successfully synthesizes a new element with the help of a hidden message encoded in his father’s old building plans. Before he could test the new element, Stark gets a message from Vanko that Vanko a.k.a Whiplash is very much alive and is still hell-bent on extracting revenge. With no time to test the new element, Stark inserts the reactor made from the new element into his chest, curing him of all the Palladium based toxicity and offering increase energy.

The final standoff takes place at Stark Expo where Justin Hammer is lining up his array of Military Soldiers under the command of Rhodes. However, it is Vanko who is secretly controlling all of them from his base. As soon as Iron Man shows up, Vanko takes control of all the robots and starts to destroy the expo. What follows next is some Transformers-meets-slasher movie kind of action. Eventually all rogue military robots are wiped off and Ivan Wanko arrives to meet Stark and Rhodes in their respective suits in a final standoff. As usual, our hero prevails.

Negatives:
Unlike its prequel which had a very dense story line, Iron Man 2 is your normal superhero-defeats-villain-and-saves-the-day type. Tony Stark’s daddy issues and his emotional entanglement with his secretary form a major part in the first half of the story, making it a little dry for action buffs like me. Actors such as Samuel Jackson, Scarlet Johansson and Jon Favreau, who is also the director, in the supporting roles were very much underused throughout the movie. Samuel Jackson who portrays Nick Fury is relegated to a few wise cracks, and Scarlet Johannson who plays Natasha Romanoff is used only sparingly. Also, I found that the CGI to be confusing, and in some cases, totally irritating. The camera work is very fast which leaves very little time to comprehend the action sequences.

Positives:
However, there are many positives in this movie which is more than enough to have you engaged. And Robert Downey Jr is first among them. He carries his dual persona of Iron Man and Tony Stark with ease with his usual flair for one-liners. Pay very close attention to his dialogues; he will leave you in splits. Second is Micky Rourke as Whiplash. Micky has taken a lot of pain to make his character look, feel and talk like a deranged Russian mad scientist. Third is Scarlet Johansson. Even though she is in a blink-and-you miss role, her ephemeral presence was enough to make my heart beat faster than usual. And how can I fail to mention the background music. The movie ends on a “high” note with ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” soundtrack, perhaps symbolizing the action in pipeline from the Iron Man sequels and “The Avengers.”

Overall, I found Iron Man 2 to be very enjoyable. A must-watch for all those Robert Downey Jr. Fans out there, I give my thumbs-up for Iron Man 2. It is a total entertainer.

Me Learns To Review (MLTR) - Carthik Kalling Carthick

My previous movie review was "Luck By Chance" ages ago, and it is just a mere coincidence that this review is also about a Farhan Akhtar movie. I booked tickets for Karthick calling Karthick around 1 A.M Wednesday morning (when the online ticket counters open up) for three reasons. Deepika Padukone, Deepika Padukone's dimples, and..er...Deepika Padukone.

KCK, as I would like to call it (just for being frugal with typing), sells, or at least tries to sell itself as an intelligent movie. When there are so many movies nowadays totally disregarding logic, it is a welcome relief that the director has tried to make the audience think. The premise of the movie is simple: how a life of a total loser changes when he gets call from "himself." The first half of the movie is intriguing, and the pace is fast. The director doesn't waste too many shots in setting up the profile of Karthick. Karthick Narayan is really someone whom we could see on an everyday basis. He is a shy, honest, and down to earth guy who is bullied by his boss, unappreciated by his colleagues, and unlucky with the opposite sex, all established in the first 15 minutes of the movie. And then the phone starts ringing, the movie begins to heat up. There is a drastic difference in tone between the two halves. First half is pacy, witty, suspensy (cool word huh) and romantic. I really loved the chemistry between Farhan and Deepika. Deepika is always smiling, and you get to see the cute dimples of hers. She is at her rocking best in "uff tere ada" song. She totally epitomizes the lyrics. I reiterate, her cuteness is directly proportional to the amount of dress she wears.

In contrast, the second half is lengthy, moody, melancholy, and sans Deepika for almost the whole of it. Even if she appears, she is not smiling, so I say...whats the point! The second half was supposed to tell us the "missing pieces of the jig-saw." Even though we do come to know who is this "himself", and why "he" does it, the movie extends to another 30 mins for no apparent reason. Trust me, there are some moments where you go "oh!", but I really feel the movie could have been handled in a much more complex way. My reasoning is that if you wanted to make your audience think, why make them think at a kinder garden level? It seems as if the director seemed to run out of time, and chose an easy way to untie the knot.

I am specifically refraining from discussing the story of the movie mainly because it is a suspense movie and I don't want to spoil it. Do check it out, and we could discuss how the movie might have been made in a different way. My main disappointment is that this movie uses the same crux or concept which I am using in my novel (really!! even though I am writing only for time pass), and director or screenplay guy could have invested more time and energy to research about this topic. To compare, he should have known more about this topic than I should know. Honestly, I seem to know more.

Like other Farhan's movies, this movie is definitely not the staple diet of the mass. This movie would strictly appeal to the so called "multiplex" crowd. With Deepika portrayed as a smoker, the movie becomes urban, and with the technical parlance, the movie becomes "corporate" ( the movie) type. Weak screenplay aside, the movie has so many positives. First, the story. It is really refreshing to look at something different for a change. (read as Akshay Kumar's movies) Second, I love the way the romance is handled. It is smooth, charming and very decent. In fact, I actually can't remember the couple even kissing in the movie. When smooching, love making and other libidinous acts seem to have become a staple diet in Hindi movies where you just cringe when you see with your family or friends, this movie sets out an example as to how beautifully you can make the romance look on screen. Third, the music. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy never seem to fail in this genre; urban pop. Each of the tunes are catchy, especially my favorite "Hey Ya." The music doesn't try to stand out; it just melts with the story. Yes, no exotic location songs, no item number, in short, no bull shit.

In short, this movie could have been much much much better, and really could have been a benchmark if the screen play were handled properly. But this is definitely not an average movie by any means.

Movie By Chance

It was a nice cozy Monday evening when men were men and the sky was blue (bluish grey actually! Damn you pollution). I thought enough was enough and decided to grab a movie which was long due. (I haven’t seen a movie in a week. Now that’s bad!). Since the news papers were “slumdog millionaring” about Zoya Akhtar’s “Luck By Chance” movie, I decided to check that out.
To start with, well, we missed the first half hour of the movie. Which means, we missed Aamir Khan’s cameo, and one of my favorite songs of the movie, “Yeh Zindaghi bhi…” Even then, it wasn’t hard to pick up the story line. The story revolves around two protagonists: Farhan and Konkana Sen, who try many things to gain a foot-hold in bollywood. And it is about how their paths collide and diverge. I must give credit to Zoya, it is very rare to find a meaty role for the heroine nowadays where bollywood is making mindless movies such as CC2C.
Hrithik Roshan is at his charming best, giving a memorable performance as the super star Zafar Khan. When you see him, you may even fail to recognize whether he is playing his character or himself. Never thought I would say this, but I guess Sanjay Kapoor could act too!! Of course, how could I fail to mention Isha, the ice cream girl, Sharwani. She looks gorgeous!!!
Of all the people who had made guest appearances in this movie (and trust me, there are loads, including Manish Malhotra and Karan Johar), Shah Rukh Khan remains in your mind forever. His dialogues with Farhan epitomizes what the whole movie is all about, “when you have everything, don’t forget those who were with you when you were nothing.” So true SRK, so damn true!!!
Even though the story is not hard to understand, it is how the story flows which keeps you engrossed. It is not hard to reflect the emotions and feelings which the characters go through; they are very realistic. Although, I feel that the movie is a tad lengthy, a movie connoisseur might tell that the extra scenes are required to provide a concrete screenplay and to establish the characters. I do not want to reveal all the details here; just go to the theatre and watch it. It is worth a try, and trust me, it you had seen CC2C, you might even recommend this move for an Oscar.
It would be wrong if don’t comment about the fantastic music of Shankar, Ehsan and Loy. Even though you may feel like having a “Rock On!!” aftertaste, the songs are excellent nevertheless. I simply can’t get “Pyaar ki Dastaan” out of my head!!


My opinion: Good movie, very much needed at this time of the hour. You can relax, and enjoy the movie without uttering “what the f$%k, how’s that possible!”

My moment of the movie: There would be a scene where Rishi Kapoor will go about asking all the leading actors such as Abhishek, Vivek Oberoi, Akshay Khanna etc to act in his movie. There was this girl behind me who was going, “wowwwwww Abhishekkkkkkkk wowwwwwww Viveekkkkkkkkkkkk wowwwwwww.” Man…chooooo kuteeeeee!!!!!!! She came with her parents, so that ended there :(