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Watched this movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’ twice already. I think it’s a movie worth watching on the big screen. Don’t watch it for Aamir, don’t watch it for Darsheel (the kid), watch it for the issue that it handles – dyslexia. The way the society looks at it or rather overlooks it in the race to be the best. As Nikhumb (name of Aamir’s character in the movie) says, “Agar race main daudaana hi tha, tho breed race horses damnit, bachche kyon paida karte ho?” (If all you wanted was someone to run in races then breed race horses, why give birth to children?) The movie is a fantastic take on how we as human beings want our children to fall into the framework that the society has derived and push them, knowingly or unknowingly, into it. I am in love with the movie. And recommend that everyone watches it. On my scale it is a * * * * *

Coming to what I am, and the rest of the country apparently is, following now, almost obsessively, the Indian tour of Australia. The Sydney test was a fatal blemish on the so far good resumes of Benson and Bucknor. I think they will meet the same fate as Darrell Hair did. In my personal opinion, the ICC needs to atleast ask for an explanation of their decisions. But what has happened is there for all of us to see. Their explanations can almost be anticipated. “I didn’t hear the nick because of the crowd”, “I didn’t think it was necessary to check with the third umpire because I was sure that Symonds’ foot was inside”, and so and so forth. So, what is the solution to this? Nothing. We must stop venting our anger on these umpires and just carry on as if it was a bad day at office. That will really put us up there as the only team to have played in the ‘spirit of the game’.

And the ‘monkey’ issue. I agree with what Steve Waugh says. It is a culture issue. Here, in India, we just can call anyone a monkey and that wont mean anything offensive on the contrary might be taken as a jovial remark and laughed away. I think what Symonds wants here punished is the ability to talk back to him. He admits to having provoked Bhajji and Steve Waugh says that Australians always thought that he was the easiest to get a response from. So, what we are seeing here is actually a well-laid trap that Bhajji has walked into. I am not getting into whether he said “monkey” or not, all I am saying is that the Aussie players could have very well evened the matter out on the ground itself, as they usually do, rather than crying out to the umpires and the match refree about it. This act of ganging up against a single player of the opposition combined with the royal ignore that Sachin got during the hearing simply points towards the disrespect of the opposition team down under. And I don’t know who the legal counsel was for Mike Procter. He/she must have been sleeping during the hearing. There is something called conclusive evidence that needs to be produced for a decision that extreme to be taken. Obviously, they haven’t heard about it. Neither has anyone. So, what’s the fuss all about? Just carry on.

Here is what the Indian team should do now. Play the practice match at Canberra and the Perth and Adelaide tests. I don’t see them winning at Perth going by the tradition of bounce that the pitch has. Adelaide has been a happy hunting ground for India and we have done well there. Maybe we should look at coming back with a 2-2 scoreline but if it was not Perth in the way I would have said we could do it. But still, with these kind of things running at the back of the players’ minds I don’t think we will be able to avoid a 4-0 whitewash either.

News just trickling in suggest Bucknor being pulled out of Perth test. That should increase our chances by 50% ;-) Am just being nasty here. The nature of the pitch is going to be such that we will have a tough time negotiating it rather than thinking about umpires and such. We should include VRV Singh and drop Ishaant Sharma for this test. And maybe try to get Pathan also in at the cost of Jaffer. That would widen our bowling and batting options as well. I feel sorry for Jaffer if this happens, but then we need to have our best bowlers at Perth. We need to get Australia out for less than 300 in any one innings if we want to stand a chance of winning.

And if the board decides to abandon the tour, for whatever reason, then it would be the saddest thing to happen. According to the ICC, Indian board will have to pay USD 2 Million for not abiding by a pre-signed contract. Well, it should be the National honour on which the boards makes a decision and not money. It already has a lot of it! :)

Coming to the movie, it is a bag of cliches. Rich spoilt brat falls in love with beautiful(?) girl. It is love at first sight. The girl is already engaged to a man who saved her father’s life. The ending is something that is not cliched and that’s what makes you leave the theatre with the feeling of “Hmmm… good end to an otherwise drab story”. And trust me, apart from the end there is little else that you can appreciate. The title song is extremely melodious catchy otherwise the music is passable.

As soon as I saw the hero’s introduction I started laughing. What’s it about this guy that made him get through the audtion? He cannot act; is ugly; has no style; grooming is non-existent; his costume selection (ranges from various colours of banians to a polka-dotted underwear) is just so-horrible; dialogue delivery means grinning foolishly at the end of every dialogue; cannot dance; and what not. He didn’t impress me at all.

Then came the heroine. My first reaction was,”What?! Is this a story of a young man falling in love with an older lady?”. She looked so old and her face was full of freckles. What kind of a choice is this for a leading pair? Did the casting director try to cut down on his budget and get a six-sigma certification or something? Fat chance that he would get anywhere near to it considering the quality of output (the lead pair) that he has finally cast. I would give him 5 on 10 just because he cast Anant Nag in that role. Anant Nag is, as always, affable and wonderful!

Cinematorgraphy during the jog falls scene particularly was impressive. The dialogues were written well too. Casual, conversational language and not all ‘traditional kannada’ which was nice to hear after a long time. Being a kannadiga in Chennai leaves you with a lot of loneliness because there is no active community of kannadigas out here. Coming from there, I felt the movie was extremely refreshing. To see Madikeri in the rains is a blessing that few are endowed with. This movie ensured that a wider audience was blessed! The jog falls scene and the idea of having the girl consent to him standing at that point was unbelievably romantic!

The rabbit ‘Devdas’ is a good creation. A symbol of love that comes into the movie when love begins and goes off when it’s time for sacrifice. The moment when ‘Devdas’ dies is indeed the most poignant one in the movie of all. It signified a lot of things. And quite aptly the movie ended on a realistic note. Not something you would see in movies around you in the so called commercially successful industries!

This movie has been inspired by various other successful movies but has combined them all together very well. Maine pyar kiya (a pigeon there, a rabbit here; cap there, watch here), DDLJ (the hero’s character), DDLJ again (engaged girl falling in love with boy) Varsham (rains whenever something significant is about to happen), Titanic (the jog falls sequence standing with arms spread out and subsequently kiss) are among the ones I could spot. I must mention here that I don’t intend to say that the movie has copied as is, the movie stands out on its own very well. Just that these were the few similarities being a movie buff that I found!

Rating: **

Legend:
*Stay at home
**If you have the time to kill, go ahead, but not recommended
***Watch if you are a film buff!
****Go watch it on the big screen!
*****Don’t miss watching this one on the big screen! Avoid piracy!

Ok ok ok. Let us come to reality. Our trusted mechanic, a former mechanic of the Superstar, helped us get tickets to the second day night show at Baby Albert theatre in Egmore. So I actually got myself to watch Superstar earlier than I thought.

In fact the first time I watched it, I agreed with him and him too. But then what happened means you know there were three tickets available for Monday at Mayajaal. I had this secret desire to go and watch it again in a good theatre with a good audio system to enjoy the music! So I went along for the Mayajaal show too.

My friends who watched it with me for the first time praised my courage. But I was clear in my objective you see! ;) But I couldn’t believe it when I started enjoying the movie like hell. I found myself whistling and clapping at the same moments I had found repelling a couple of days earlier. I have never experienced this before. Probably the Superstar magic! I not knowings! :) But super enjoyment! And finally the result was this!

PS: This also proves my theory that where you watch a movie matters!

Listening to: Some vague programme on Radio City, 91.1 FM

Who is the only Indian to have participated in Formula One Car Racing? a. Karun, b. Narian Karthikeyan. Please sms “Rang your answer (a or b) followed by your name, location to 7007″ to win exciting prizes!

I looked up at the signal timer and saw that I had another 60 seconds to pass. I took the mobile out of my pocket and sms’ed “Rang b Aditya, Ashoknagar” to 7007. The signal turned green and I proceeded.

My strategy was this: Radiocity is the only channel that anchors all its programmes in half-tamil and half-all other languages and hence the tamil audience would not be interested in the channel. Rather the more important fact would be that Radiocity plays songs of all languages – Tamil, Hindi and English and hence its listener base would be that much lesser than the tamil channels. And added to this is the fact that Radiocity is the newest on the block and hence is trying to catch up on listener base. So, I thought I had a chance of winning that exciting prize! And so did I!

Exciting prize = two tickets to ‘Traffic Signal’ at Seasons (new theatre in Sathyam multiplex) 10.15PM show. Like my wife said, this was ‘a tale of two traffic signals” 

And here’s the review.

Madhur Bhandarkar has a good track record. “Chandni Bar”, “Satta”, ”Aan-men at work”, “Page 3″ and ”Corporate”. Ok – 3 out of 5 is not a bad hit rate. With ‘Traffic Signal’ he makes the score 4 out of 6 and that is very good by Bollywood’s quality standards.

‘Traffic Signal’ is not something you would watch for timepass. And that holds for any Madhur Bhandarkar movie except Aan for obvious reasons! 

 TS is serious stuff. It shows the link between beggars and sellers at the traffic signal to the local don to the politician to the big underworld dons to the business world (through builders). Now what you and I don’t know is whether this is a figment of Madhur’s fantastic imagination or is it the truth? Unless we make an effort we won’t know.

TS looks like ‘Corporate’ superimposed on the life of beggars. TS looks like a brilliant brainwave that struck Madhur while he was at a traffic signal on his way to shooting for ’Corporate’. Sounds simple to say that but to execute it the way that Madhur has done is commendable. Of course there are a few characters that are out of place and have no relevance in the movie, but then that’s the way he has made it. And I didn’t find the necessity to have Konkona Sen Sharma’s character in the movie. Ditto with Benjamin Gilani’s character.

Over a movie that was okay. One song particularly impressed me and that was ‘Yeh zindagi hai to kya zindagi hai” sung by Hariharan. Amazing song! And that lead actor Kunal Khemu, though he could have done with less kajal to his eyes, was good.

Rating: **

Legend:
*Stay at home
**If you have the time to kill, go ahead, but not recommended
***Watch if you are a film buff!
****Go watch it on the big screen!
*****Don’t miss watching this one on the big screen! Avoid piracy!   

Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is the son of a teacher belonging to Idhar village in Gujarat. But Guru is a failure at studies and has made big plans to go abroad to work. His father though never believes in the ability of his son. Guru is amazingly ambitious and supremely confident about his abilities. So he joins Shell in Istanbul, Turkey, selling oil cans and does very well in that job to merit a promotion within 3 years. When offered the promotion, Guru refuses saying, “Agar main idhar achcha kaam kar sakta hun to khud ke liye kyon na karu!” (If I can work so well for some foreign company then why not work for myself?). He leaves the job and returns to his village to pursue dreams of setting up his own company.

Guru marries his best friend Jignesh’s sister Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) who is one year elder to him and even though she tried to run away with someone from her village because he will receive a lot of money in dowry from Sujata’s father with which he can start his business. And he also promises to make his best friend-turned-brother in law a partner in his business. So everyone is happy with this deal and the marriage is ritualised!

Guru, Sujata and Jignesh then proceed to Bombay to try their luck which Guru is absolutely sure is going to click. He is supremely confident of making it big in Mumbai. But he faces a slew of obstacles and emerges out of them successfully through plain guts (never is any unethical practice shown which is somehow brought up towards the end!!) which border on foolishness. After a few successes with the help of Gandhian newspaper owner fondly referred to as Nanaji, Guru becomes very confident and starts making rapid strides. Jignesh cannot keep pace and leaves Guru and also takes Sujata with him.

Guru, on the other hand, though is slightly worried about these happenings. But he has reached a point of no-return and continues with completing those large half-strides that he has already taken. He goes for a public issue and creates his own company manufacturing polyester and keeps growing. Somewhere along the way he goes back to his village and brings Sujata back home.

Guru finally reaches a stage where he begins using the media and others to achieve more success. Nanaji suddenly (another point of concern here is that, the war cries are let out on what the audience sees as something harmless) realises this is where their roads clash and resolves to fight Guru to the end. According to Nanaji, Guru has now become a disease of the society that needs to be stopped in his tracks. Shyam Saxena (Madhavan) is nanaji’s protege who believes that people like Guru need to be jailed and the key thrown into the sea. So, the movie builds up to the interval as a fight between Guru and Nanaji (through Shyam) with Guru saying, “Mujhe koi nahi rok sakta. Na aap, na yeh Shyam Saxena, na yeh akbaar!”. (Nobody can stop me. Neither you nor Shyam Saxena or your newspaper!”)

When I got up from my seat during the interval I realized my eyes were aching because the camera had moved so much that it almost had me tired. I was tired of watching those close-ups. In order to avoid covering much of the background because it was a period setting the camera was focussed on close-ups rather than any other beautiful reason that the camera man Rajiv Menon can conjure. And as the timeline approached the 80′s it was relatively safe to take those long shots. I thought the cinematography could have been better. Atleast by Mani’s standards we have seen much better pictures than the work done here. This looks like Mani’s first shot at a period film (A classic called ‘Iruvar’ was also by the same gentleman, ’Guru’ ends during the late 90′s or around that time) and it shows through the cinematography. All that unnecessary slow motion shots during the climax court scene made me feel dizzy. But I should mention that the movie is crystal clear visually - no dots, lines, nothing. Pure digital print I guess.

Coming back to what happened after the interval: The fight between Guru and Nanaji climaxes with the shareholders of Guru’s company questioning his ethics and integrity. Guru lands up in a lawsuit and how he wriggles out of it forms the remaining part of the story. The dialogue in the climax is good and hard-hitting but needed more populist punchlines. The applause that Mani expects to generate in the audience during that scene is obviously missing and that is very embarassing for a movie-maker of Mani’s calibre. A better dialogue writer would have helped, maybe? But the dialogue writer would have helped if Mani had the right concept in the first place. You cannot justify whatever wrong you have done just because your company is held by the public. That isn’t Mani, but offlate (‘Bombay’ for instance) Mani has been resorting to endings that are politically correct and incoherent with the cinema he is trying to make. I thought Guru would have been better if he had potrayed Guru as someone who is unabashedly open about whatever he has done is for himself. Instead of using his shareholder base as a reason for doing so many wrongs.  

Frankly, I was not impressed with the movie at all. A typical rags to riches story is what we all knew it was about. But then with Mani Ratnam wielding the microphone you expected better stuff. Alas! Mani misses the bus! The execution of the story lacks conviction and is too unbelievably fantasy-like. And the ending lets you down so much you actually walk out of the theatre wanting to know how the jury decided to acquit Guru after having a 30 secs chat that resembled the coffee-vending machine chats at any software company!

For starters, nobody understands the concept of ‘shout and trade market’ unless they have been through a similar experience somewhere before. So, for most part of it you don’t understand what is going on when Guru tries to get the ‘market’ opened after it’s closed down for apparent gambling. Nanaji seems to have just come along wanting to meet an angry chap on the road during his morning walk. His taking of a sudden interest in Guru’s case makes for a no-brainer to me atleast! And instantly the very next day he publishes a story about the closed boundaries of Mumbai’s trading market – I mean Rupert Murdoch would be proud of his ability to respond so quickly to an angry and shouting stranger’s case.  

Sujata’s character could have been developed further in an intelligent fashion. She is reduced to cooking and household chores throughout the movie but in the end she becomes a 50% shareholder in Guru’s company and a promoter too! Voila! Wonder what the remaining 30 lakh shareholders were thinking! Come to think of it, the jury raises this issue without going through the company’s annual reports and articles of  memorandum of assoication? That just goes to show how utterly under-prepared the jury is to handle the case. But I should mention that I was impressed with Roshan Seth. Good, subtle brand of acting.    

Whatever Guru does in Istanbul is fairly Greek and Latin except for the three-glasses game. Guru’s character had great potential, but Mani concentrates on one too many things within the three hour 70 mm format and loses focus of everything. Guru shows so much of passion to achieve success abroad while studying in Gujarat and when he is offered a promotion he reveals to a stunned audience that he wants to go back to his village and make it big there. Huh?!! If not for the hazaar interviews and over a lakh of trailors on the television I would have fallen off the seat when that happened.

Guru develops a circle of people whom he trusts unquestionably. And in business those are the people that decide whether you go up or down. And Mani doesn’t show us how Guru develops that group of people. Guru seems to be a character that would have had a flair for sizing up people in the first look itself but Mani choses not to show that aspect. Guru is shown to be a man of just one aspect and that is MAKE IT BIG. But Guru is not a loner, Guru treats Nanaji as a father-like figure, Guru loves his wife, Guru loves his children, but then how did he develop such an apathy towards his brother-in-law? Or is it just that it was convenient to forget about Jignesh once he left Guru? Either the editor or the story has erred completely on these aspects.

And what is this obsession with rain? Who in his right mind would hold a shareholder meeting under rain? Especially when all the previous meetings had a roof, this one meeting there is no roof and it rains too! I mean God must be so mean! Abhishek Bachchan’s acting towards the end falters a little in terms of being consistent with the facial experessions.

And I would like to mention about art direction a little here. The sign of “Shakti Corporation” put up on the background of the shareholder meeting looked like a typical thermocol cut-out which a school-going kid would have made. No, am not saying you need to have a metal cut-out with shine and all that, atleast a classy banner would have done. Especially when you are talking about “India’s biggest company”! If I were Mani Ratnam, I wouldn’t have accepted such amateurish work. Don’t know what Mani was doing.   

The songs are placed so badly in the movie that if I were A R Rahman I would just sit and cry because you don’t expect Mani to make such fundamental blunders. ‘Barso re’ and ‘Ek lo ek muft’ are the only songs that are in the place they were meant to be. All the other songs seem utterly out of place. ‘Jaage hain’ was the most dissappointing for me. The greatness of the song is totally lost in the awkard placement.

But yeah, there are good parts in the movie too. The theme of the movie is an excellent one in today’s times. Dream big and get going. If someone tries to throw muck at you go further ahead. Amazing message. And finally there is the touch with reality too – showing the system and it’s fallacies. How the system itself produces a person that it finally comes to hate is a fantastic concept. The narrative that it starts off with is suddenly given up somewhere along the line. Not that you miss it, but then you expect Mani to keep a track of such things.

The performances are good. Nothing to get excited about. Abhishek excels. And shows shades of his legendary father during the last scene. Especially when he says, “..yeh haath aise hi latakta rehta hai…” (…this hand that hangs…) you are instantly transported to the “Vijay Deenanath Chauhan” of Agneepath. Good work Abhishek.

Aishwarya is sadly relegated to nothing not even background. A cute song to start with, a few dialogues here and there, have kids and smile into the sunset. What a role Mani! I am sure Suhasini would have voiced her concern with you about it! But Aishwarya does justice to the role. She was not as plastic as I thought she would be. She is better today than she was in “Aur pyar ho gaya” (Her hindi debut movie). And she is made to glow through Rajiv Menon’s camera – credit to Rajiv where it is due!  

Mithun da is the smashing package. You love him when he supports Guru and hate him when he criticizes Guru. That’s the dynamite that Mithn da is. And not only by seniority but also by performance he establishes why his name should be flashed first during the title credits.

Madhavan and Vidya Balan have no chemistry whatsoever. When Madhavan proposes marriage I almost spat out the popcorn. I was like..what the $#@! is happening here? Madhavan’s costumes make for an interesting study item. Only when he goes out for stories does he wear khadi kurtas and while at workplace and home he is either in casual shirts or t-shirts! Hillarious that was! I mean stereotyping ki bhi koi hadh hoti hai yaar! (There must be some limit to stereotyping!)

Vidya Balan’s character was what I fell in love with. The objective lens of the movie. Everyone she loves is fighting with one another. But she knows the ’true’ thing. The ‘right’ thing. Stunning character. Whatever stars I give in my rating will be for Mani’s ability to visualise a character of this sort. But then the execution of her character on the big screen failed big time.

The art direction though very detailed and precise and all that engineering good stuff you want to say about it. It looked artificial. Maybe I don’t have the eye for “sets”, but then this is my review, right?!

Mani Ratnam could have slept though this movie. I believe in this man’s ability and know that he will make another classic in an year’s time and it will be called “Lajjo”. You have failed in Guru though, for me atleast, that’s the truth.

Rating: **

Legend:
*Stay at home
**If you have the time to kill, go ahead, but not recommended
***Watch if you are a film buff!
****Go watch it on the big screen!
*****Don’t miss watching this one on the big screen! Avoid piracy!

Farhan Akhtar tries an Indian James Bond but why did he have to choose a script of an old Indian blockbuster for this purpose? Maybe he consulted his father Mr. Javed Akhtar to write such a script and he said why not pick up one from my old tried and tested ones! And in 2006, you are treated to a film that is based (well, almost!) on a script written in the late 1970’s.
“Don 2006” is stylish and is twisted and convoluted beyond the recognition of the 1978 Don. Any resemblances to the original should be considered purely coincidental in fact. That’s the way in which Farhan Akhtar has adapted the script. Any comparisons to the original will only make you feel worse having watched Don 2006.

So, let’s steer out of comparison mode but not totally. The story, atleast the major part, is based on the Don 1978. Don is caught by police (DCP) and replaced with a look-alike “Vijay” to infiltrate the group and pass on information to the police. Then in a rare turn of events, the DCP dies and Vijay is left alone to fight it out all alone. So far so good and even Don 2006 sticks to this. Well, almost!

Farhan Akhtar brings in his intellect here. He hasn’t considered the Don 1978 script to be sacrosanct. He has made massive changes to make it interesting. And succeeds to an extent too. But then, it raises so many questions in your mind that when you are out of the theater you are busy debating certain things with everyone around you that you are not exactly thinking whether the movie was good or not. Now, I don’t think that’s the way one would want to end this movie after so much of effort to make it more interesting.

The Kareena cameo is not choreographed well enough. Farah Khan can do good work to party songs and dance numbers. She is not your person to do “seduction” numbers. I mean Kareena danced like she wanted to make Don dance with her and not sleep with her! The Farah Khan ability comes out very well in the “Khaike pan banaraswala” song combined with Shah Rukh Khan’s energy, the song is a pleasure to watch. (Utterly out-of-situation, but as Farhan Akhtar says, “Don would be incomplete without the song” and I agree)

The movie could have been shot better. The blurry look doesn’t help the slick image that Farhan wants. Paris (the action sequence to introduce Don was shot here. Why? You ask? Because Don is an international criminal!) was shown in such a hazy light that I was rubbing my eyes to believe what I had seen! If you want the movie to look slick then please hire a good cinematographer. A Ravi K Chandran or a Santosh Sivan would have done very well. Who is Mr. Mohanan? All people with names ending with “N” don’t make good cinematographers! (P.C. Sriram for example) The worst piece of cinematography I have seen is of that sequence on the Petronas Towers.

The editing, the scenes jump from one to another. Especially the scene involving DCP, Don and Roma where revelations are made and suddenly next scene is Don is in the school. Looks like a rearrangement of scenes in the hindsight. It is definitely a very amateurish attempt to cover up the twists and turns. At many other places too, the movie jumps. Not at all a good sign of editing a movie. If I had to rate editing alone, I would have given it zero stars.

The direction, considering the potential of Farhan Akhtar, could have been better definitely. Personally, I didn’t like the way he had characterized “Don”. Don is a womanizer (that tilted head with winged hands caricature of the ballet rehearsal at Paris was enough to establish that) and he drools over girls dressed in bikinis. He is a courier boy who goes to deliver his own stuff to seal business deals. He is a criminal wanted by the Interpol and only 5 cops including two old cops are on this search. The police have no photo of the enemy (Vardhan) of Singhania (Don’s boss) but have a shot of Don with which he could have entered a modeling contest (Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, namumkin hai tho Vardhan ko Don bhi nahi pakad nahi paaya! Ab uske bare main socho!) Finally, Don is a small-time arms dealer who grew big because of the disintegration of Russia. Why is this required at all?! If he could have worked on his characterization a bit more, such stupid things wouldn’t have been necessary to convince us of the gravity of the situation. Anyways, Farhan Akhtar fails completely in characterizing Don – his main character, but succeeds in keeping us glued to the seats till the eternally long movie ends. (Is there some rule that all SRK movies need to extend beyond three hours or something like that?)

The music of the movie is a highlight that keeps us interested. Mainly because the songs are recycled from the past and made to suit today’s sound. But I have a problem with the title song. Shaan’s voice sounds too hollow to be a Don’s voice. A voice with slightly more gruffiness in it would have done the job better. Maybe Shankar Mahadevan himself should have moderated his voice around a little bit and sung. Naresh Iyer would have been a great choice for this song. The background music is catchy. Giving the movie a James Bond feel is the background music.
The stunts and the special effects department could have done better in the Air drop sequence or for that matter the Petronas towers sequence. Both of them fall flat. Like “Lakshya”s war sequences most of the stunts here fall flat. First, because there is not a strong enough concept behind it and second it is shot badly. Very badly. An out-of-context thought here: What was the white villain doing in the prison and the aeroplane? Why was he required? To tell us that Don is an international criminal? Why couldn’t Farhan Akhtar move away from the clichés (that usually surround a Salim-Javed script) and give us a convincing version of the original? Well he tried. And it worked. Well, Almost!

Shah Rukh Khan does his part. After “Swades”, he has tried a non-mushy mushy movie for which we should nominate this film to the Oscars. There is no trembling voice here. No smiles and teary hand-waves showing ‘tatas’. Probably, not having seen him in such a role for a long long time I thought he was about to change into the Karan Johar wardrobe any moment. No slow motion running. (He would be dead in that case! LOL!) Good pair of coolers he wears. Makes quite a style statement by wearing his tie inside. The only person who could have carried all this off was Govinda. Sad to see SRK substituting for Govinda. But no, credit where it is due. SRK isn’t as irritating as he is in his other movies. And so he has done his part.

Let me not talk about other performances as I would tend to disclose the plot in that case. Let me just say that Bomman Irani is not wasted while Om Puri is given nothing short of shit. Priyanka Chopra is pleasant. Kareena tries in vain to be sexy and dies in the process. Arjun Rampal limps his way for a fight scene with SRK. The cast is irrelevant in Don. Well, almost!

Rating: ***

Legend:
*Stay at home
**If you have the time to kill, go ahead, but not recommended
***Watch if you are a film buff!
****Go watch it on the big screen!
*****Don’t miss watching this one on the big screen! Avoid piracy!

Tomorrow’s match…
SA-SL. It’s a quarter final for SL. If they lose they will find themselves on an early flight to Colombo while If they win, then they will have to wait for the Pak-NZ match on 25th and Pak-SA match on 27th and hope that Pak beats both NZ & SA. Instead of getting into more confusion let me just say the group is still open.

For the SA-SL match, I am backing the Sri Lankans yet again. Motera is a pitch that is traditionally known to take some pace in the beginning and spin later on. If that happens and SL win the toss and elect to bowl, then they are set for a victory. Handling Murali on the turning track with a dew-covered ball is going to be impossible for the inept SA batting line-up. Anyway, as Sidhu says If “ifs” and “buts” were “pots” and “pans” then there would be no tinkers! (If anyone knows what it means, do let me know. I used it because it sounded good! But I know that it talks something against this compulsive use of if’s and but’s to predict one’s own desire as the most practical outcome!)

And yesterday…
I watched this tamil movie called “Vallavan” which has Silambharasan acting and directing the flick. For the first time in my part-time career as a film critic I have come across someone who is more narcissistic than Kamal Hassan. Now, I don’t want all of you to pounce on me and say it is good to be a little narcissistic that’s when you can do great work. Well, I totally agree to that and for that I will quote every Kamal Hassan movie as proof (except maybe “Alavandan”).

Now coming to Narcissism gone haywire, welcome to the world of self-acclaimed Little Super Star Simbhu. He is mad. Crazy. Demented. He has just shot this movie to imitate Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan and prove to himself that he is a divine combination of both of these. Also to take dirty below-the-belt potshots at S.J.Surya. [I am now shaking my head thinking of how Mr. S.J.Surya will now react to these!] “Vallavan” has been made so that Simbhu may kiss and fondle his ‘supposedly’ real-life sweetheart Nayanthara (who is stunningly beautiful after losing that extra flab around her waist!). I don’t think she even allows this guy with an oversized head near him otherwise! Why was sweet-faced Sandhya needed? And why was Reema Sen made to look like a tramp even in a school dress? I pity producer Mr. Thenappan for investing on Simbhu and totally support him if he hasn’t paid Simbhu 40% of his fees. This movie will not run beyond the first 4 days and there is a possibility that Simbhu’s house maybe stoned after this!

Even scenes with potential are spoilt in the name of some non-existent style. For eg., the scene where Simbhu walks upto some guy (who looks like he has fallen off from some RGV Factory’s movie set) and advises him on how love should be treated and induced in a girl by love but not threatened. One thing I didn’t understand amidst the hundreds of screwed up things in the movie is: Why do the sidekicks always make this puking sound while being pulled around by the rope after being hit by our Little Super Star (my foot! little super star!)?!! I am actually surprised he didn’t name it “Simbhuvan”!

To top it all…
I watched this movie in a drive-in theatre in Chennai.

1. For starters, this guy doesn’t seem to have a cap on the capacity. He will allow as many cars as possible. And they will park themselves wherever they find it comfortable. There is nobody guiding these cars and I guess he never stops issuing the tickets.
2. The canteen is of no use. He has bhel-puri, cutlet, paneer roll and veg roll. Period.
3. I agree that as a theatre you have no control over lights that are lighting up the background behind the screen, but please switch off those lights (Ladies Toilet lights, canteen lights, etc.) or atleast find some way of covering it up so that it doesn’t disrupt the cinema-viewers experience.
4. Can you please strictly check the cars of those coming into the theater for alcoholic drinks? The car next to us was having beer and smoking away to glory. It (Beer can smell awful and the smoke made it claustrophobic) made our experience much worse than Simbhu intended to.
5. The sound system is pathetic. The Auto Drivers’ Stand next to my house hired better speakers for their Ayudha Puja celebrations. The frequency of sounds generated by your speakers would have been better intercepted by owls and bats! Save us, we are human beings!

Sathyam Cinema wins hands down on all accounts!