Satya Agraha

Satyagraha is yet another attempt by Prakash Jha to unmask the monster behind the politicians face, like his previous movies Satyagraha too takes on the system against the common man and shows how a single common man cannot make a difference even with a huge support and backing.

Satyagraha is a story of Dwarkanath (Amitabh Bachchan) who decides to take a stand against the system of a small constituency namely Ambikapur with the help of Manav (Ajay Devgan) a successful businessman who gets his things done by hook or by crook, Yasmin (Kareena Kapoor) a TV journalist who wants to fight for truth and does not believe in sensational news sections, Arjun (Arjun Rampal) is a local social worker who has been born and bought up in Ambikapur and shares the grief and pain of its residents. The fight is between The Jan Satyagraha Samiti including the former members vs the giant crocodile of the  corrupt river Balram Singh (Manoj Bajpai) who has things his way or no way ! Drawn from the inspiration of Anna Hazare (read Amitabh Bachchan) demand for “Jan Lokpal Bill” Satyagraha loosely depicts what went wrong with the movement and how anything like this cannot work in the future.

Amitabh Bachchan can now be called the Father of Nation ooops Father of the Bollywood  with an amazing performance and a  very meaningful role Amitabh strikes gold. There was never a doubt that Amitabh cannot play such a role, with his command over the language and beautiful timing no other actor could have done this part better. His mass popularity on Social Networking Sites like Twitter and Facebook has helped him become more popular amongst the youth generation, this helps us relate to the character of a person who believes in truth and true sense of freedom.

Ajay Devgan was a little disappointing for a couple of reasons: A.) Ajay looks completely out of shape and looks like he has been not hitting the gym off late, B.) He does not have any meaty dialogues, punchlines or memorable one liners just like “Ata Maazi Satakli” of Singham & C.) Ajay Devgan has done this kind of a character N number of times and we have seen him perform better. For an actor like Ajay Devgan the performance bar has to go up with every new movie, any mistakes or under performance will definitely accepted by his fans specially after the Himmatwala fiasco.

 

Kareena Kapoor has a very subtle but very strong character, for a change we don’t see a glamour doll to fill the screen with her oomph and karizma, this time Kareena has a power packed role with a very clean and clear reflection of the character. A sensible journalist could have been played by many actress, but taking a risk of playing a leading lady in a movie amongst gigantic names and path breaking performers like Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan & Manoj Bajpai  is worth an applaud.

 
Arjun Rampal is getting better day by day or should we say the selection of his movies is getting wise, Heroine, Chakravyuh, Inkaar, D-Day and now Satyagraha what more can any actor ask for ! Once known as a rock faced actor and go ahead and win a National award is not a simple thing to do. With Satyagraha Arjun Rampal once again proves that no role is small or big its only good or bad, and if you can do justice to your role you will definitely not be ignored.

 

Manoj Bajpai has a special bond or rather a better understanding with the Prakash Jha or Ram Gopal Varma style of filmmaking, and he cannot go wrong in any ways. You can love him and you can hate him but you cannot ignore him, while watching the movie you cannot decide whether to love his acting or to hate the character, the class and the fineness shown by Manoj Bajpai as the cold blooded killer and full of corruption is played amazingly by him.

Amrita Rao plays a damsel in distress who loses her husband (Indraneel Sengupta) who is the son of Dwarkanath (Amitabh Bachchan) the character has a very fine outline in the beginning but the sheen and sharpness of the character gets lost in the crowd of seasoned characters and moreover does not have any purpose besides being the supplementary reason of begin of the revolution.

Prakash Jha as a director has done nothing wrong but hasn’t done anything new, what looks so easy and achievable looks just good on screen, we have seen this in all Prakash Jha movies right from Gangajal to Apaharan to Rajneeti to Chakravyuh and now Satyagraha. The most common thing in a Prakash Jha movie is Reformation of Society but the path is the same one small flame converting to a huge wildfire.

Overall Satyagraha is old wine in new bottle, the major let down of the movie is that it cannot decide whether doing a Satyagraha proved good for Amitabh & Co. or did it give a lesson that no one should mess up with the Politicos. When we go to see a Society Reforming movie we are expected to come out with a new thought process and inspiring new thoughts even though its for a few hours after the movie but it needs to be there, well in that case Satyagraha is more like an eye opener teaching you not to mess with the politicians or they will make your life miserable. To cut the long story short if you expect the movie to be a path breaking revolution or a Society Reforming Movie you will be disappointed, otherwise the movie a one time watch.

My Rating 2.5/5 (-1 for underrated performance and dialogues by Ajay Devgan, -1 for uncooked or may be weak story telling & -1/2 for boring and useless songs in the movie  apart of the title song… Watch At Your Own Risk)

 

 

 

 

 

 

D Company Ka D-End

Just came back from D-Day and could not resist myself from writing a review at this hour. 2 things to make note of 1.) Indian Film Industry is something what every movie lover has ever waited for, its changed and changed for Good ! The tide has turned since 2012 and we have witnessed dozens of movies which are path breaking and have defied all the norms, rules and regulations of Indian Film Commerce. D-Day is the underdog which has not been properly promoted, if proper justice would have been done with its marketing this movie could have had a super duper start.

D-Day tells the the story of brave R-A-W officers, Rudra (Arjun Rampal), Zoya (Huma Qureshi), Wali (Irrfan Khan) & Aslam (Akash Dahiya) who are under cover RAW agents in Karachi and are assigned to nab Iqbal Seth a.k.a Goldman (read “D”) who is scheduled to attend the marriage of his son in Karachi. The officers almost have his hand on him but due to some mishap loose him. Now the entire I.S.I is behind these 4 people who tried to abduct Goldman. What Happens next ? do they get their hands on Goldman again ? Do they fail again or are they double crossed ? if you think this plot is really interesting and intriguing then you need to see the movie to get all your answers.

Arjun Rampal as Major Rudra Pratap Singh is a psyched suspended army man who has his own way of dealing with crime, he is arrogant and lives life and takes decision on his own terms. Arjun Rampal give you a very good reason this time to believe that he can act, I had said the same thing when i had reviewed Inkaar, and here i am saying it again. I don’t feel people still want to call him poker face or rock expression face, cause hes improved himself and has not left any stones unturned in proving himself worthy of the National Award he had got for Rock On. His body language his expressions and his dialogue delivery is extremely rehearsed and very nicely handled.

Irrfan Khan is one actor you should never underestimate how much ever role he gets, not that he does not have a good role in this movie but without him the movie is not going anywhere. He has wowed us before and he never fails to wow us with his sheer talent and amazing screen presence, its people like him, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Kapur etc who have time and again proved thats looking good and acting good is two different things, and if you can act well, its enough to pull out a good movie. Irrfan Khan does a wonder job with D-Day playing Wali who is not measurable or predictable. He plays a very confused character who is always on a crossroad and has always to make a difficult choice, but he always gives his duty first importance even if that means sacrificing his life.

Huma Qureshi plays Zoya who is the binding agent of the entire operation she use her charm to get things done by hook or by crook, though she does not physically fit to play a RAW agent and looks really fat and a typical woman she some how manages to get away with her job. I would have prefered some other actor to play the role who could be more diplomatic, more suave and more physically fit and appealing as an agent. Shruti Hassan who plays  a prostitute turned love interest of Rudra has hardly any role but whatever shes got is well managed by her.

 

Rishi Kapoor, once again in a negative role after Agneepath & Aurangzeb, that too donning the character of World 2nd  & India’s Most wanted man is actually a let down. Here the character looks like a owner of a small time Halwai of delhi wearing red goggles and printed shirts with a funny looking wig, leave aside fear, most of the time you pity the guy and feel sad for him. He’s a dreaded criminal and The Most Wanted Man, he has to be someone who should scare the shit out of you with his mere screen presence. Somehow I don’t blame Rishi Kapoor for this, the responsibility should be of Nikhil Advani (Director) who has not done justification to the character.

The supporting caste of the movie is very good, Nassar as Chief of R&AW Ashwini Rao, Sandeep Kulkarni as Atul Mishra, KK Raina as Gen. Raza, Chandan Roy Sanyal as Bhanja, Shriswara as Wali Khan’s wife , Dwij as Wali Khan’s son keep the story moving and have done their parts very well.

A big disappointment comes in the form of Songs in the movie, why do we need songs there is no audience in the theatre who wants to listen to a good or may be bad or even a pathetic song in between a very interesting plot. When will the directors kill their urge to put a song in middle of a good progressing story and murdering the movie. Please directors take this as a humble request.

On the whole, D-Day is a good movie with a very good story, great climax & some notable performances on the other hand the movie fails in terms of proper characterization of  its antagonist and useless songs in the movie. if you like movies which are sensible action movies but not out an out dhishum dhishum movie with flying cars and 1 hero fighting 50 odd henchmen, then this is the movie to watch, having said that its nothing awesome that you want to remember for a long time. So incase all the guys who want to spend some quality time minus your wife/girlfriend with your boys gang go watch it.

My Rating 3/5 (-1 For not required songs & Romantic track between Arjun And Shruti & -1 for unappealing and understandard character of Rishi Kapoor)

 

 

 

 

You Can’t Say INKAAR To This !

This review has to be in 2 parts

A. For the people who like The normal Masala Bollywood Film

B. People who like the World Cinema – It was Different – Type

So lets start with the A Category people for the people who loved Dabangg 2, Rowdy Rathore, Son Of Sardar etc. This movie is not for you ! Inkaar is a very intelligent movie where you cannot say “DIMAG SIDE PE RAKH KE DEKHNA” its very complex and very bifocal.

So its very obvious that the B Category will like this movie. YES, you are right Inkaar can be counted as the first step of making bold films with the right kind of content and not just using sex to gain money from the smaller circuits. Like they say one man’s wine is another man’s poison.

Inkaar is a very intelligently made film, which keeps you undecided till the end who right ! The story from the very first scene to the last is all about the Sexual harassment case between Maya (Chitarangda Singh) & Rahul (Arjun Rampal) and a fight between both to prove themselves right. The story is very topsy turvy going forth and back to make the point turn by turn. The Director (Sudhir Mishra) has cleverly showed the audience 2 movies at the same time One from Maya’s view point & the other from Rahul’s view point. Both the story looks quite realistic and acceptable only to add to your troubles to decided who’s right and who’s wrong.

Performances of each and every character is really worth appreciating, thought its a very simple screenplay and nothing extraordinar to be done but the simplcity is handled very nicely. Dipti Naval is a surprise package she handles herself very gracefully and does full justice to her role, Mohan Kapoor (Paul) play

s a perfect Ad Agency Junkie, Vipin Sharma (Mr. Gupta) is superb with his careless and faithful attitude and of course Kawaljeet excels in what ever little he got to do. Now to the main stars, Arjun Rampal has improved as an actor, people used to call him stoned face but behold, the new and improved Arjun Rampal, hes quite capable of performing such a complex task I am sure some other actor could have done this role but personally i found Arjun to be good enough. Chitarangda is one actress who can give any of the top leading ladies of the industry today a big complex, she’s nearing 40 but shes ravishing and extremely beautiful and Sexy, her acting, her body language and her dialogue delivery is top notch, beware top actresses (read Kareena, Katrina & Deepika )you’ve got competition.

And now for the down side, the biggest complain of the movie is the music, such pathetic music ? why what do we deserve to listen to such crap ? And what was Sudhir Mishra thinking of making Saurabh Shukla (kallu Mama fame) perform an item number ?? Come On … !!  Give me a break. The other draw back is the length of the movie with hardly 1 or 2 songs besides a couple of useless songs running in the back ground the length of the movie is 129 minutes which  2 hrs 10 minutes, it seems the editing department could have made some necessary changes and bought it more sleek and slim.

On the whole if you are thinking of having some chilled out time and see something that will just freshen you up from your boring routine you can give it a skip. But if you like the deceptive and intriging  movies ala Hollywood style or you wanna see some good thoughtful cinema, yes with a message, Go see Inkaar !

My rating 3.5 / 5  (Minus 1 for Music  & Minus Half for Length)