Amour & Turbulences (2013) - Romance / Comedy

 

One of the best things that I like rather love about movies from foreign lands is that neither I have any clue as to what they have in store for me nor any expectations. And when they turn out to be based on a situation like this one is – two complete opposite strangers meet on an international flight and as I expected that they will fall in for each other by the time they land – I got proven wrong yet again as they actually had a past and were separated for quite a while before they meet again. One of them is going for a job interview from NY to Paris and the other is about to get married the very next day. What works big time in the favor of the movie is that the subject is ripe with so many situations, confusions; laugh out loud moments, engaging storytelling, predictable outcomes, beautiful leads and amazing support cast (not for the first time that I saw a movie of this sort – I am sure I have seen at least two movies from Hollywood with exactly same plot). Ludivine Sagnier as Julie is simply amazing (And stunning) and so was Nicolas Bedos aptly cast as Antoine the Casanova who just couldn’t stick to the same girl more than two weeks at a stretch. What happens when he decides that he has actually fallen for Julie and wants to make it work. How situations go out of hands and the utter chaos that follows to a fantastic finale is simply amazing – if not outstanding it at least makes up for a light hearted comedy that I just couldn’t help but fall in love with. The way story moves forwards and I totally loved the way they walk in from one scene to another – that was something very creative and amazingly shot out stuff. I also loved the support cast – people around them in flight who are totally hooked to the story right like us audience. I will definitely rate it a good 3.5/5 and will recommend to those who like light hearted romantic comedies – go ahead watch it and you will surely like it.

300 Rise of an Empire (2014) - War / Fantasy

Another sequel or prequel or whatever you call this crappy movie – becomes a classic example of how a movie shouldn’t be made in the first place. This totally spoils the taste of 300 and the memory of the fantastic movie I ever had engraved in my mind forever. Disaster of the first order – it is such a boring, lousy and yawn inducing movie that’s very hard to review – all they did actually shot and show is three days of war and tried their level best to match the standard of first movie with more blood, action, drama and even sex (One Topless shot of a female and another fantastically aggressive sex scene with Eva Green) even then it fails big time to impress. I was surprised that even with the runtime of hardly 102 minutes – it wasn’t able to engage me one bit. 100 or more look alikes (at least physically) of Gerard Butler too don’t help much in doing 1/10^th magic of Zack Snyder’s 300. Although it can be called out an out Eva Green movie – as it’s an author backed character and she truly shines in the negative character unfortunately that’s the only saving grace of the movie, otherwise nothing else works in the favor of the movie. I am going to go with a 1/5 rating and that one too is only for Eva’s outstanding performance. Give it a miss if you haven’t seen it yet as it is definitely going to spoil the taste of 300 but if you haven’t seen (300) you may give it a shot. I am going to pick up the Gerard Butler movie this weekend to format this disasters memory from my mind for sure.

Ragini MMS 2 (2014) - Horror

I understood the meaning of the word “Contrasting” very well after watching two opposites back to back in a single day, first it was “Queen” in the afternoon followed by the ultimate disaster called “Ragini MMS 2” right after it. Another classic example of a movie which should have never got made in the first place – they have actually picked up a handful (Read Half a Dozen) over the top actors to play some real lousy characters and given them enough freedom to do whatever and however they want – end result – this movie. The only two saving graces for me were Sunny Leone of course (no denying she is fuming hot as long as she doesn’t open her mouth to say anything) and the dude who plays that writers character – he was no doubt good, intensive and what not. Rest all can plainly be ignored with a special mention of Sandhya Mridul – wow – one can stoop to what level to pay the EMIs – she actually plays a character based on Rakhi Sawant and the way she pulls it off is laughable. Another laugh riot character is that of the psychiatrist (Divya Dutta) who returns from US of A to take care of this particular case of Ragini and that gives her a right to wear anything which is 4 or 5 inches above her knees and trust me – not exaggerating – she actually borrowed dresses from Vidya Balan after she was done shooting for “Shaadi Ke Side Effects”, if you don’t trust me – go check out the movie and her outfits. There are so many laughable words in the movie like “Script”, “Story”, “Research” etc, its more of a comedy of errors than anything else. They are rightly calling the movie a Horrex and I am sure that means “Horrible Sex” and nothing else. Barring one scene where Sunny fakes an orgasm in front of the whole unit – guess this was the real movie unit as I actually saw the camera man coming out from behind the camera and wipes off his sweat – nothing else works in the favor of the movie. This one had not thrills, no chills, no sex and let alone any kind of horror either. If you haven’t seen it – I will say - give it a miss as I refuse to rate this one anyways.

Queen (2014) - Drama

150^th movie of the year for me and what an amazing movie this one turned out to be – I had no expectations (I’m lying) especially when I was watching it on big screen on its third week of running with a jam packed hall on a sunny Sunday afternoon, had to settle for 5^th row from screen and we still loved it. It’s a simple heart touching story told in the most simplest way yet it works big time as almost every connects not only with Queen’s (superb Kangna Ranaut) character, but with her hypocrite husband to be Vijay (damn good Rajkumar Rao) and the family n friends too. Other than the leads Lisa Hayden as Vijay Lakshmi definitely makes a big impression too, I guess I actually liked her. This movie is going to do the same to Kangna what last year’s “English Vinglish” did to Sridevi. I don’t know if I am the only who felt this way but this one somehow feels like a prequel to that movie – I am sure Sri’s character would have gone through the same thing before she gets married to her husband who happens to be exactly the same guy Vijay was in this movie. This one tells the story of before marriage and that one was after marriage. Another thing what I loved about the movie was that none of the character is haphazardly written for example Vijay’s character – even after know Rani (Queen) for so many years and actually after falling for her as shown in various flash backs – he is human enough to get confused right before marriage and even walks out of it. Rani being a girl from a very conservative family still goes on to her preplanned honeymoon to a destination most loved yet unknown and almost all the strangers she comes across understand her way better than the people who should have, who know her for so many years. The movie and the characters never go overboard – she travels to foreign lands and doesn’t understand their language neither is perfect in English but the way it all is shown is so damn convincing. The way she comes out a winner – the journey which changes her inside out totally is simply outstanding, it’s predictable yet engrossing to say the least. Music is another highlight of the movie – my seat was actually shaking with so many people in my row, myself included were tapping their both feet on the floor that too so hard that I could actually feel – Amit Trivedi is simply brilliant. I will definitely rate it a damn good 4.5/5, a movie which deserves to be seen again and again – as it inspires one and all big time. A must watch for all.

Gulaab Gang (2014) - Drama

WOW, what a disaster and a confusing movie – I guess they wanted to make a docudrama, somewhere midway while writing the idea of a commercial movie stuck with the makers and they end up hiring two of the legendry actresses opposite each other to make a proper commercial masala and end up making this hotch potch which makes no sense at all. I mean so much is happening in one village that too such huge contrasting things is really amazing but I guess I needed to take it all with a pinch of salt as they claim “It’s a work of fiction and has got nothing to do with the life of Sampat Pal Devi” whose actual life people thought it was based on. Of course and I am dead sure that her life wouldn’t be half as interesting as Rajjo Devi’s (Madhuri Dixit) that a movie maker will pay any heed to make it into a movie. In this movie on one hand we have females getting beaten up / raped / tortured and left uneducated and right on the other hand we have females from the same village smoking, drinking and having premarital sex too. No background whatsoever on Rajjo Devi is given to audience, as why she is what she is? As well as no background on Sumitra too – I am still confused what was her title in the movie? What kind of a political figure she was – who was so bothered about a handful of females from one village standing up against the society (Read village) and to top it all – the election results too were dependent on one village. Fortunately the only one thing which works in the favor of the movie is the supremely written character and equally well acted Sumitra Devi (by ravishing Juhi Chawla), she gets to dome some amazing expressions and fantastic lines, totally loved it. Tannishtha Chatterjee gets to do another thankless character which will be soon forgotten just like her other Bollywood movies, along with two other actresses, Divya Jagdale and Priyanka Bose who do actually make a mark in the movie. I will give it a below average 2/5, one for the idea and concept and other one definitely for Juhi Chawla’s superb performance which kept me watching the whole 2 hours and a little longer movie which otherwise I wouldn’t have finished anyways. I am now looking forward to the documentary of the same name and hope that’s way better than this one.