Piku!

There are very few movies which have the perfect ingredients for you to be drawn to the theatres. Piku is one such film. Shoojit Sarkar (aslo the director who gave us Madras Cafe) and Juhi Chaturvedi unite again after writing Vicky Donor. The tag line of " Motion se hi emotion" is self explanatory and tells us whats the movie is about. The trailers and the tag line are a tad misleading as even though you will see Amitabh ranting about his not-so-good bowel habbits through a major portion of the movie, there is much more to the movie. The movie in fact is  more about the latter half of the tag line i.e emotions rather than the former i.e. motion. The story is a simple one which by now you guys must have figured out. Amitabh is a crancky attention seeking hypochondriac bong dad who wants his daughter's life to revolve around him.  To such an extent that, at one point he even explains a guy Deepika meets how she isn't a virgin and he should not think of marrying her. Deepika is this frustrated daughter who inspite of being fed up of her dad and his irregular bowel habbits , tries to cater to all his needs; however eccentric they may be. Then comes in Irrfan Khan, owner of a cab hiring company who himself is frustrated by his own mother and sister and is forced to drive this unusual "couple " all the way from Delhi to Kolkata.

Coming to performances , I loved all three :Irrfan , Amitabh and Deepika (in that order. And yes Irrfan >> Amitabh). Irrfan has this uncanny way of making you laugh in the simplest possible way. Amitabh Bachan as the bong Bhaskor is a treat to watch and is the quirky element makes us laugh with his paunch ,the bong accent , his idiosyncrancies (hiding the salt everyday) and at the same time the childlike innocence (best seen in the last seen when he comes back cycling all over Kolkata). Dee"Piku" has given probably her best performace. The de-galm look and the the way she portrays the character of the irritated but caring daughter is excellent. Not only the casting of the lead actors is great the supporting actors like Raghubir Yadav (Mungerilal anyone?) as the family doctor  and the thrice married bong aunt Moushumi Chatterjee are a delight to watch too! The music and the background score is also nice, Anupam Roy making a superb debut as a music director and singer. Not even once it seems intrusive and you aren't left wondering when, why and how did this song happen (Bhai fans take note!)

And last but never the least, the direction. Kudos to Shoojit Sarkar for blending all the elements in the perfect way. The way he tells this simple yet interesting story is so good. He repeats what he did with Vicky Donor, where he presented a taboo topic without even a hint of sleaze. This time around he selects a topic which not everyone would like to be vocal about and one that may disgust most of us. And trust me, no where in the movie does the poop-talk make you go "ewww". It always gets a smile. Full marks for him for that. One particular scene where they are about to start their journey and Irrfan Khan expects Deepika to sit besides him rather than the family servant is hilarious wihtout having a single dialogue. One expects in that in a Bollwood film there will be atleast one song/ scene where the lead couple is seen moving around hand in hand. But thats not always essential as the audience is intelligent enough to understand stuff in a subtle manner. He depicts the same in the last scene of the movie where he wants to show that Deepika- Irrfan get together. He simply shows a badminton game between them referring to a prior similar scene.

A director's excellence doesn't rest in painting a larger than life picture with lavish sets and random unrealistic situations (Bhai movies being a perfect example) but rather it lies in making the audience feel at home, giving them situations that they can believe can happen it their routine life.  For eg all Rajkumar Hirani movies. The scene where the sweeper gets irritated with Munna for walking over the floor he cleaned moments ago is something which we must have encountered sometime. Its this method of story telling that I personally like. My favorite being Hrishikesh Mukherjee. His movies had such simple topics and routine issues presented in the most believable way. Be it the couple rivalry in Abhimaan to the fear of death in Anand and others movies including  Awara , Mili, Bawarchi, Chupke Chupke , Gol Maal . Definitely. Shoojit Sarkar is no Hrishikesh Mukherjee, but he does come close.

All in all its a simple tale presented in a nice way!



Rating : **** (Do watch this one in the theaters.)

P.S. I don't know what is it with all these talented bong artists ! Be it actors ,singers (Kishore Kumar GANGULY :) ) , musicians to directors- Khub bhalo dada log!!

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Coffee Ani Barach Kahi

I usually do not reviews for Marathi movies because they are either publicized so well that everyone watches them irrespective of how disastrous they are (Read : Lai Bhari) or they aren't publized at all that they don't even end up getting a decent theater opening (Read: the probable fate of Court which releases 17th April). But then there are the rare third type which do manage to create some stir , like this one. " All that glitters is not gold" and the same applies to the movies too, " All movies with good trailers may not turn out into good movies". Coffee ani barach kahi is a perfect example of the same.

It does start off on an interesting note but then thats it. The movie goes haywire from there on. To add to the non existent story line , they have managed to cast the worst actors possible. All of them compete amongst themselves, but the lead Vaibhav Tatwawdi takes away the worst actor award hands down!. He fails to emote throughout. His happy ,sad and exited face are all the same. The dialogues are good in patches but they are diluted with n number random instrumental music / songs. The situations look unrealistic most of the times . Plus in an attempt to give a sensible ending, they have wasted Dilip Prabhavalkar and Suhas Joshi. And also when you give a specific title to your movie its epected that atleast some part of your movie revolves around it. The title infact should have been " Nahi Coffee. Ani kahich nahi".  The only saving grace was that the movie was shorter than 2hrs (I sincerely thank the makers from saving us the torture of a 3hr long movie of such caliber). To sum it all you can definitely give this one a miss. The only reason you may want to catch this one one the DVD/TV later is to see the worst acting/ direction in recent times.

P.S. This would probably be among the top three worst movies I have seen . EVER. Roy and Humshakals being the other two in the list.

PPS : The title is literal translation of CCD's tag line " A lot can happen over a coffee" .

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NH10

It takes some great reviews/ story line to drive me to the theaters ,especially when our friends at PirateBay have reached new levels, delivering high quality rips within 3 days from the release. NH10 did manage to do that. But at the end of 1 hr 45 mins , I was utterly disappointed. When I say this , I know I will be contradicting almost all the reviewers, but that's the way it is. NH10 definitely has a nice concept. A brave attempt. But as Siddhu paji would say it, "You are remembered for hitting the target not for aiming at it". And that's what NH10 does. Anushka has definitely given a good performance, but that's by her standards which aren't that great either. However, a single good performance isn't good enough to make a good movie. What starts off as a hatke concept goes haywire by the time we reach the end of the movie. Honor Killings is something which hasn't been highlighted in Bollywood. But NH10 does no justice to that. Plus the movie seems unrealistic at so many places. And the rest of the cast is very passable. So irrespective of what the (paid ?) reviews say its better that you save this one for your lappies.

P.S. I have stopped liking Anushka after a certain job she got (Read:Quack Quack!). And from the performance point of view , she was way way better in Band Baja Baraat

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