Iron Man

The success of everything from Spiderman to Hanuman, has made it clear that superhero flicks are a sure-fire way to make big bucks. Paramount Pictures have tried to continue the same trend with their special effects- extravaganza, Iron Man.

Though it may have not matched Spiderman and Batman in pre-release hype, it certainly is at par with them in all other departments, if not better. Like most ‘part ones’ the story line educates the audiences about the superhero’s origins, his subsequent evolution and ends with his first major face-off with a villain.

However, Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as the playboyish super-rich, super-genius Tony Stark definitely sets this movie apart from the others. His rendering of the role can be best described as a blend of Jack Sparrow’s eccentricity with Bruce Wayne’s slick persona.

What works for this movie (apart from the grand special effects, which in all probability will leave you open-mouthed) is the fact that Tony Stark does not lose his sense of humor after becoming Iron Man, unlike Spiderman and Batman.

Gwyneth Paltrow, playing Tony Stark’s assistant and love-interest, Pepper Potts is thoroughly wasted, yet manages to do a better job than most other leading ladies in Superhero movies. Though it must be said that Jeff Bridges as the villainous Obadiah Stane delivers a fine performance even within the limitations of his role. Ramin Djawadi’s heavy-guitars soundtrack goes nicely with the movie as well.

However, the fact that the movie has a token black character and that the Afghani terrorists for some reason converse in Hindi may offend a discerning viewer’s sensibilities.

All in all, Iron Man is slick, futuristic, action-packed and thoroughly entertaining. There’s no reason why this one shouldn’t be a box-office success

Bhoothnath

Banner: B R Films
Producer: Ravi Chopra
Director: Vivek Sharma
Star Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Shahrukh Khan, Aman Siddiqui, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Shah
Music Director: Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani, Salim Merchant, Sulaiman Merchant

The movie “Boothnath” is aimed at children audience on vacation. The movie is about a friendly spirit, family generations, school pranks and relationships. The script of the movie is clear and performance of Amitabh Bachchan is extremely perfect. Though the film shows Ghosts, it is not a horror movie and it just tries to get spirituality in theme.

The film is directorial debut of Vivek Sharma and the initial part of the movie depicts the little kid Aman Siddiqui playing pranks on people around him and the last hour has a few emotional moments. The kid actor Aman Siddiqui never at a point in the film gets weak in performance and matches his co-stars well.

The story of the film is about Banku, who has a ghost friend, Kailash Nath that is Bhoothnath .Banku comes to a house in Goa to live with his mummy and the house is considered to be a place full of ghosts who drives away people from the place.

The ghost uses all tricks to scare Banku but Banku remains unaffected and with Banku the ghost starts developing a bond .Both Banku and Boothnath play pranks on Banku’s friends and school mates. One day the owner of the house Priyanshu, who is Banku’s father and son of Kailash Nath, plans to sell the house.
The cinematography and script are almost predictable; there is nothing new in the two section of the movie. The music is a drawback for the otherwise well made movie .The performance of Aman Siddiqui, Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla and Priyanshu are impressive .Rajpal Yadav has less scope in the movie.

The movie will get kids audience coming with their families to the theaters in the summer vacations. The movie doesn’t suit the tastes of youngsters or college goers and will perform average on box-office.

Rating: 7/10

Jimmy

Banner: High-Definition Motion Pictures
Producer: Nawman Malik, Salman Malik
Director: Raj N Sippy
Star Cast :Mimoh Chakraborty, Zulfi Syed, Aashish Vidyarthi, Ehsaan Khan, Rati Agnihotri, Vikas Kalantri, Rahul Dev, Shakti Kapoor, Nilofer, Gargi Patel, Pooja Singh,
Vallabh Vyas
Music Director: Anand Raj Anand, Bappa Lahri, Vijay Verma
Cinematography: S Pappu

Choreography: Chinni Prakash
Action: Mehmood Akbar Bakshi
Art: Amit Mishra
Editor: Prashant Khedekar, Vinod Nayak
Screenplay: Ranbir Pushp
Sound: Naeem Sheikh, Alok De
Dialogue: Ranbir Pushp
Costume: Khatri Irfan, Puneet Singh
Story Writer: Ranbir Pushp

Jimmy is a wrong movie for a debutant like Mimoh Chakraborty. The drawback of the movie is not only the basic script but also the music. The star kid gets an opportunity to show that he has got talent to stay in the glamour world but the movie couldn’t catch the audience.

The script of the movie seems to be taken from one of the movies released in the 80’s decade. The story starts as a dead body is recovered by a police and Jimmy is held responsible for the killing. Jimmy accepts that he killed the dead and goes behind the bar.

Jimmy is basically a mechanical engineer and works in a pub as DJ in night. He works hard to pay back the loans taken by his late father and when Jimmy gets arrested for the murder crime everybody is shocked but Jimmy accepts the death sentence given to him as he is convicted in the case without revolting for it.

But as Jimmy is taken to the prison, he realizes that he has been drawn into a trap by his enemies and now he wish to run away from the place. How will Jimmy get out of the trap is the basic story of the movie.

The movie has Disco theme in the music similar to the movies of Mithun Chakraborty but the dance performances and choreography of the dances performed by Mimoh are really impressive. The overall effect lacks a powerful script and support of music.

The song Marhaba is impressive. The performance of Mimoh needs further brushing up and he has talent. The debuting actress Vivana is good looking and other artists in the movie have less scope to prove anything.

The movie will be watched by fans of Mithun Chakraborty and by those who are impressed by the dances of Mimoh Chakraborty though Mimoh needs a better role and movie to prove himself.

Rating: 3/10

Mr. White Mr. Black

Banner: White House Productions Limited, Eros Entertainment
Producer: Bipin Shah
Director: Deepak Shivdasani
Star Cast: Sunil Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Sandhya Mridul, Upasna Singh, Vrajesh Hirjee,
Tania Zaetta, Sharat Saxena, Mahima Mehta, Shravan, Ning ,Anishka Khosla, Bobby Darling, Rashmi Nigam., Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Aashish Vidyarthi, Atul Kale
Music Director: Shamir Tandon, Tauseef Akhtar, Jatin Pandit, Lalit Pandit
Background Music: Sunil Singh

Cinematography: Thomas Xavier
Choreography: Chinni Prakash, Rekha Chinni Prakash
Action: Abbas Ali Moghul
Art: Aashish Ranade
Editor: Steven Bernard
Screenplay: Sanjay Pawar, Nishikant Kamat
Sound: Venu Gopal
Dialogue: Sanjay Pawar, Nishikant Kamat
Story Writer: Deepak Shivdasani

The movie Mr. White Mr. Black makes you laugh in a few scenes but not after the first hour. The movie doesn’t get helped from any section of movie making like music (except the song ‘Samundar’), screenplay and choreography. The movie is inspired from the hit movie of Sunil Shetty “Gopi Kishen” and the director Deepak Shivdasani is unsuccessful in delivering a full fledged comedy movie.

The story of the movie is about Gopi who comes from Hoshiarpur to Goa with the aim to handle over a piece of land to his friend Kishen. Kishen cheats people to makes money to help his co-sibling Divya study in London and he hides his profession from Anuradha by telling her that he is in double role, one bad and other good.

Kishen on meeting Gopi tries to avoid confrontation and Kishen is also not interested in leaving his work in Goa to reach Hoshiarpur to get the small piece of land. Then an incident happens and three girls steal diamonds that belongs to Laadla and the girls reach Goa. The story is how the land at Hoshiarpur becomes all of a sudden important for all the people in the story.

The movie start is intelligent and but many sequence are unexplained. The script has many plots that have no reason and conclusions. The stories of marriage, love and suspense gets fused up.

The performance of Sunil Shetty is same as ever and Arshad is impressive. The actresses Sandhya Mridul, Anishka Khosla, Rashmi Nigam are impressive. Ashish Vidhyarti deserve a better role. Sharat Saxena is good.

The movie has been released at the time when audience(families ) are free and enjoying the summer vacations so a light comedy is the choice of families but the movie is not that attractive and will per form below average on box-office.

Rating: 3/10

Pranali

Banner: Harward Entertainment
Producer: Nikhil Mathur
Director: Hirdesh Kamble
Star Cast :Nargis, Upyendra Limaye, Raman Trikha, Sudha Chandran, Vinay Apte, Hemant Pandey, Sujata Sehgal, Suzanne Bernert, Rohini Kapoor, Vinod Khemani, Kalpana Sathe
Music Director: Kailash Kher, Paresh, Naresh
Cinematography: Najeeb Khan
Choreography: Saroj Khan, Pandit Birju Maharaj
Action: Abbas Ali Moghul
Art: Jasmita Pathare
Editor: Chaitanya Bose
Screenplay: Hirdesh Kamble, Manoj Pandey
Sound: Santosh Kumar
Dialogue: Manoj Pandey
Costume: Nikunj Vyas
Story Writer: Hirdesh Kamble, Manoj Pandey

The movie Pranali has a socially awaking script that gets irreverent, becasue of the way it has been made. The movie has the biggest disadvantage that audience cannot identify with whatever is shown onscreen. The movie tries to talk about legalizing the profession of prostitution in a very unconvincing way. The debuting director Hirdesh Kamble lacks precision in implanting script onscreen and the performance of the actors (except Nargis) is unsatisfactory. Screenplay and music are equally ineffective in bringing out anything from the movie.

The story of the movie starts as a foreigner Judy is searching for a prostitute Pranali and the husband of Pranali is writing a book on her life. Then the movie goes into flashback -In a famine hit poor village, the parents of a little girl, Pranali get convinced by a priest to allow their daughter into the system of Devdasi where in the name of god little girls are forced to carry out prostitution. Many rich class people and famed men are afflicted to the Devdasi system. Pranali is handed over to the priest to carry out the system of Devdasi.

After a sequence of incidents, Pranali reaches the Mumbai red light area decides to give birth to a baby and she wants education for her child but her kid is prohibited from getting education from the place where all the socially sanctioned people are teaching their kids.

Then a NRI enters the scene and he helps Pranali to get her kid educated and he writes a book on Pranali. The NRI even helps co-sex workers of Pranali to get out of the mess and tries to get a legal sanction for the so called profession of sex-workers.

The music of the movie has been done by Pt. Birju Maharaj and the movie doesn’t deserve high class classical music. Performances of almost all the stars are below average except Nargis. Upendra Limaye, Sudha, Deepshika, Vinay Apte had low scope roles.

The movie is based on a theme that is anti social in current scenario and the movie even doesn’t match the taste of family audience. The movie will get below average collections.

Rating: 3/10

Anamika

Banner: Bhanwar Lal Sharma Production
Producer: Bhanwar Lal Sharma
Director: Anant Mahadevan
Star Cast :Dino Morea , Minissha Lamba, Koena Mitra, Aarti Chhabria, Achint Kaur, Gulshan Grover, Prithvi Zutshi, Vishwajeet Pradhan
Music Director: Anu Malik
Cinematography: Pushan Kriplani
Choreography: Piyush Panchal
Action: Jai Singh
Art: Gayatri Marwah
Editor: Sanjib Datta
Screenplay: Anand Vardhan
Sound: Navin Shah
Story Writer: Anant Mahadevan, Anand Vardhan

The movie “Anamika” is a suspense thriller that has unwanted ingredients of horror. The script of the movie has been taken from story book Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and has been made into Indian scenario. Being the movie based on a long script (a book ) it gets tiring in the second half and it can clearly made out that the director Anant Mahadevan, himself found it complex to depict the story with a decent conclusion. The movie catches attention but suspense gets identified in second hour and movie couldn’t engage audience further to the screens.

The story of the movie is about the rich businessman Vikram Aditya Sisodia who goes to Mumbai and meets the escort Jia Rao while trying to make a proposal of converting his palace into a resort. He gets attracted to Jia and marries her but before the marriage he reveals the truth about his initial marriage and informs Jia that his first wife died under unfortunate conditions. Jia reaches the palace owned by Vikram Aditya Sisodia that is the Lake Palace of Gajner. He is surprised to see the huge palace and also to see the beautiful socialite dead wife’s photographs of Vikram.

At the palace Malini, the governess of Gajner has been helping Vikram to convert the palace into a resort. Malini talks to Jia and tells about how beautiful Anamika was and Jia finds too many places in palace that have the imprints of Alphabet A .Jia starts sensing Anamika’s spirit and she gets so impressed by Anamika that she tries to transform herself into Anamika though Vikram does not like her to look like Anamika.

One day the brother-in-law of Vikram who is also a state cop accuses Vikram of having a hand in killing Anamika. Jia gets confused over the incidents and further revelation makes her feel more puzzled. Jia’s only friend in the palace is Malini with whom she shares her dilemma.

Then one day appears the boy friend of Anamika Sanjay and a sandstorm opens up the hidden secret of the palace. The dead body of Anamika comes out from the sand. The police re - opens the case and Vikram is believed to be the killer. The story after that is about how Anamika gets killed is revealed and about who is the person behind the plots against the Sisodia family?

The Anu Malik songs and Aadesh Srivastava’s background make initial hour horror effective whereas the story of the movie can be predicted after the first half itself. The revealing of the secrets have been done too fast.

The performance of Dino Moreo has improved from his last movies, though his standstill expressions make him look confused. Minissha Lamba and Koena Mitra are good in performance.

Though a popular star cast is not present in the movie, the movie will attract audience for its suspense, horror and script and it will turn out to be average in collections .Currently no blockbuster is dominating the theatres and the vacation season is on, so the movie will be benefited.

Rating: 6/10

Sirf - Life Looks Greener on the Other Side

Banner: Seven Eagle Productions
Producer: Sanjay Kotadia, Ghanshyam Patel, Kanu Patel
Director: Rajaatsh Nayar
Star Cast :Kay Kay Menon, Manisha Koirala, Ranvir Shorey, Sonali Kulkarni, Parvin Dabbas, Rituparna Sengupta, Ankur Khanna, Nauheed Cyrusi
Music Director: Sohail Sen, Shibani Kashyap
Cinematography: Baba Azmi
Choreography: Baba Yadav
Art: Shree Kumar Nayar
Editor: Rajendra Surve
Screenplay: Rajaatsh Nayar, Shashikant Verma
Dialogue: Santosh Saroj
Story writer: Rajaatsh Nayar, Shashikant Verma

The movie “Sirf - Life Looks Greener on the Other Side “ tries to explore the relationship problems of couples who think that the other person whom they are meeting are more happy then their own but the movie doesn’t have any impact on the audience because the script seems to lack a powerful end to all the three hour long story.

The story of the movie is about four couples, first is financial well off but not strong in relationship, second couple is in need of finances but they have only love and have no money. The third couple is in search of security with their partners and fourth don’t have time for other.

The story is similar to the lives of people living in metro cities who are too busy with their money making prospect that they stake their relations and other personal needs and then the metro city lives of couples turns into messes of relationship. This looks similar to the movie “Life…in a Metro” but the clarity in the story of the movie “Metro” lacks in this movie. The script of movie Sirf is weak and it creates unexplained sequences to make the audience keep guessing about what’s happening. Many portions in the movie make the audience feel that the story is not moving forward.

The direction of the movie has been done by debutant Rajaatesh Nayar but script makes things go hay way. Music is not catchy but the cinematography by Baba Azmi is attractive.The performance of Sonali Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta, Ankur Khanna and Ranvir is as per the needs of the role. No errors can be found in the performance of these actors. Manisha, Parvin Dabas and Kay Kay are average in performance.

The movie has not been promoted well and the actors are not the dominating glamorous stars of bollywood who can bring audience to theatres. The script is weak and music is not a chartbuster. The movie will perform below average on the box-office.

Rating: 3/10

Tashan

Banner: Yash Raj Films
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Director: Vijay Krishna Acharya
Star Cast :Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra, Manoj Pahwa,Yashpal Sharma
Music Director: Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani
Background Music: Ranjit Barot
Cinematography: Ayananka Bose
Choreography: Vaibhavi Merchant
Action: Peter Hain
Art: Sukant Panigrahy
Editor: Rameshwar S Bhagat
Sound: Rishi Oberoi, Ali Merchant
Costume: Aki Narula
Story Writer: Vijay Krishna Acharya

Spontaneous dialogues and performance of Anil Kapoor and Akshay Kumar are the only attractions of the movie Tashan, that lacks proper finishing in all sections or it can be said that there is no Tashan in the movie. The movie looks raw and the script of the movie is full of flaws though it later tries to amend into a meaningful cinema but overall the outcome is unimpressive. Tashan may be entertaining for the youngsters who are die -hard fans of Yash Raj banner movies but the movie really needs brushing up and improving in script, editing, direction, cinematography and choreography.

The story of the movie is about Bhaiyyaji who has the so called Tashan to learn English like the American President and he is expert in killing people. Bhaiyyaji gets coached by the call centre executive Jimmy who has the Tashan of making friends with girls. Jimmy was convinced by Pooja, to teach Bhaiyyaji English. Pooja has the Tashan to make fool of people around her and last is Bachchan Pandey who is another criminal who speak in a so called northern criminals kind of language.The movie is about how the four people who hate each other have to come together and be friends in the process to achieve their aims.

The looks of the actors in the movie are very different from the general trend and the looks of Anil Kapoor and Akshay Kumar match the role whereas the other character look uselessly made into something. The shooting locations and hairdo looks to be made to make the Hindi movie look like a Hollywood or a French movie. The choreography of songs is worst and the actors look as if ,finding it difficult to move their legs while dancing. Even the songs are not all entertaining. The director needs to learn a bit more of direction and the cinematography of the movie has no promises.

Except the performance of two actors Akshay Kumar, Anil Kapoor nothing is catchy in the Yash Raj Banner movie. Saif Ali Khan got least opportunity in the movie to prove his talent and Kareena is looking unfit for the role. The film has been made for a famous banner that attracts audience but this one delivers a poor cinema. Audience may go to theatres to watch the movie to get some entertainment but the movie is not delivering what it promises.The movie has not even been screened many in major multiplexes in the metro cities.

Rating: 5/10