Wednesday, 31 December 2008

Mission Istanbul-sh*t

Well sometimes people make mistakes. OK maybe my mistake could well have been avoided, but I'll put it down to a lesson learned. You may be asking what the lesson was that I learned right? If a film looks rubbish and it gets rubbish reviews and flops big time, the chances are the film is really rubbish! Despite all these warnings, I decided to watch Mission Istanbul.

The story follows ace reporter Vikas Sagar (Zayed Khan) and his search for an exclusive on the latest terrorist story. He bags a high profile job with TV News Company Al Zohra (Al Jazeera anyone?) and travels to Turkey to start his job. Why the news station is based in Turkey is anyones guess but that's the least of our problems when it comes to plot holes! All is not right at Al Zohra and when fellow reporter Owais Hussain (Suniel Shetty)is killed during a mission in Afghanistan, Sagar starts to wonder if all is what it seems. Enter Rizwan Khan (Vivek Oberoi) a mysterious ghost like figure who starts to impart information to the confused Vikas. Soon it becomes apparent that Al Zohra is linked to notorious terrorist Abu Nazir and Rizwan Khan's job is to bring down Al Zohra with the help of Vikas.

The plot is wafer thin and there are so many plot holes that it would take a week to go through them. All in all, an absolute waste of time. However I must say one of the scenes featuring a George Bush look a like was pretty funny.

After watching Vivek in his most awesome turn as Maya Dholas in Shooutout Lokhandwala, one wonders why the hell he would sign a seriously rubbish film like MI. The only thing I would say is, he did look Turkish! A Turk that spoke impecable Hindi that is! Seriously Vivek, you gotta sign some decent films or you'll find yourself stuck doing roles that Suniel Shitty has a habit of doing.

But I learnt an important lesson, if the reviews say it's rubbish, the public say it's rubbish then take it for granted it bloody well is going to be rubbish!

0.5/5

Friday, 26 December 2008

Express Review - Tashan

Cast:
Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Anil Kapoor & Kareena Kapoor.

An all star cast including the all conquering box office king Akshay Kumar was being hyped as a super hit even before it hit the theatres. The bigger they are the greater they fall. Tashan was slated by the critics and hated by the public. I put off watching it after reading some of the reviews but my curiosity eventually got the better of me. After all, there must have been something that attracted bollywood heavyweights Akshay and Saif to sign up to this!

The story is of Saif and his girl Kareena, they steal some money belonging to underworld don Anil Kapoor. Anil sends local gunda Bachchan Pandey (Akshay) to recover his money. And so the chase begins...

The Good:
Dil Dance Maare is quite a catchy number, barring that absolutely nothing else worth watching.

The Bad:
Everything other than that one song. The plot is terrible, the acting is awful. Anil and Akshay ham it up big time and it all just looks too fake. Saif is just there playing his usual self and just the presence of Kareena has me out in a rash.

Verdict:
Tashan is all about style and lacks any substance at all. The director spent so much time perfecting the outfits, the cars and the locations that he totally forgot about the substance. With all that talent at hand he still managed to produce a truly awful piece of cinema. Not since Jhoom Barabar Jhoom has an all star cast sucked so badly!

0 out of 5

Saturday, 20 December 2008

2009 Predictions

As 2008 comes to a close people will be talking about which films made it big and which flopped over the past year. While Dostana and Singh is King (I refuse to spell it incorrectly!) ruled with their comedy, big films like Yuvraaj and Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic sank without a trace. So with this is in mind, I stole a copy of India FM's list of releases for 2009 and made a few predictions.

Movie Name

Director

Starcast

Prediction

A Love Issshtory

John Mathew Matthan

Himesh Reshammiya

Flop

Aa Dekhe Zara

Jehangir Surti

Neil Nitin Mukesh, Bipasha Basu, Amrita Arora, Koena Mitra

Flop

Acid Factory

Suparn Verma

Fardeen Khan, Dia Mirza, Irrfan Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Dino Morea, Aftab Shivdasani, Danny Denzongpa

Flop

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

Rajkumar Santoshi

Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Upen Patel, Darshan Jariwala, Asrani, Salman Khan

Average

Aladin

Sujoy Ghosh

Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ritesh Deshmukh, Juhi Chawla, Jackie Fernandez

Average

Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai

Ravi Chopra

Govinda, Lara Dutta, Tabu, Boman Irani, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Shah

Average

Billo Barber

Priyadarshan

Shahrukh Khan, Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Asrani, Deepika Padukone

Hit

Blue

Anthony D'souza

Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif, Zayed Khan

Average

Bum Bum Bole

Priyadarshan

Darsheel Safary, Kaveri Jha, Atul Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta

Flop

Char Yaar (Earlier Titled Paying Guests)

Paritossh Painter

Shreyas Talpade, Javed Jaffrey, Ashish Chowdhry, Johny Lever, Chunky Pandey, Asrani, Paintal, Delnaz Paul, Celina Jaitly, Vatsal Sheth, Neha Dhupia, Riya Sen, Sayali Bhagat, Viju Khote, Inder Kumar

Flop

Daddy Cool

K Murali Mohan Rao

Sunil Shetty, Aarti Chhabria, Ashish Chowdhry, Tulip Joshi, Aftab Shivdasani, Javed Jaffrey, Kim Sharma, Sophie Choudry, Rajpal Yadav

Flop

De Dana Dan

Priyadarshan

Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Neha Dhupia, Sameera Reddy

Average

Delhi 6

Rakesh Mehra

Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Divya Dutta, Om Puri, Rishi Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman

Hit

Delhi Belly

Abhinay Deo

Imran Khan, Shenaz Treasurywala

Flop

Dharma Productions' Next

Rensil D'Silva

Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Tara Sharma

Average

Do Knot Disturb

David Dhawan

Govinda, Ritesh Deshmukh, Lara Dutta, Sushmita Sen, Ranvir Shorey, Rajpal Yadav

Flop

Dulha Mil Gaya

Muddassar Aziz

Shahrukh Khan, Sushmita Sen, Fardeen Khan, Mohit Chadha, Tara Sharma, Johny Lever, Beena Kak, Suchitra Pillai, Vivek Vaswani, Howard Rosemeyer

Flop

Fox

Deepak Tijori

Arjun Rampal, Sagarika Ghatge, Udita Goswami, Sunny Deol, Vipul Gupta

Flop

Har Pall

Jahnu Barua

Preity Zinta, Shiney Ahuja, Isha Koppikar, Jai Kalra, Dino Morea, Lilette Dubey, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Yatin Karyekar, Dharmendra

Flop

Hello Darling

Manoj Tiwari

Celina Jaitly, Gul Panag, Isha Koppikar, Javed Jaffrey, Rajpal Yadav, Chunky Pandey, Amrita Arora, Divya Dutta, Asawari Joshi, Rasika Joshi, Mukesh Tiwari, Vrajesh Hirjee, Sunil Pal

Flop

Hissss

Jennifer Lynch

Mallika Sherawat, Irrfan Khan, Divya Dutta, Jeff Douchette

Flop

Housefull

Sajid Khan

Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Ritesh Deshmukh, Jiah Khan

Hit

Jashnn

Raksha Mistry, Hasnain S Hyderabadwala

Adhyayan Suman, Anjana Sukhani, Shahana Goswami

Flop

Johnny Mastana

Shoojit Sircar

Amitabh Bachchan, Dia Mirza, Sarika, Jimmy Shergill

Flop

Kajraare

Pooja Bhatt

Himesh Reshammiya, Monalisa

Flop

Kambakth Ishq

Sabir Khan

Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Amrita Arora, Aftab Shivdasani, Vindu Dara Singh

Average

Kaminay

Vishal Bharadwaj

Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte

Flop

Kisaan

Puneet Sira

Jackie Shroff, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Dia Mirza, Nauheed Cyrusi, Dilip Tahil

Flop

Kites

Anurag Basu

Hrithik Roshan, Kangna Ranaut, Barbara Mori

Hit

London Dreams

Vipul Shah

Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Asin, Om Puri, Chris Wilson, Michael Gamarano, Rannvijay, Babsy Artner

Flop

Main Aur Mrs Khanna

Prem R Soni

Salman Khan, Govinda, Sohail Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Sajid

Hit

Milenge Milenge

Satish Kaushik

Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Aarti Chhabria, Satish Shah, Delnaz Paul

Average

Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekkh Mudh Mudh Ke

Seema, Sudhir

Himesh Reshammiya, Jennifer Kotwal, Niharika Singh

Flop

My Name is Khan

Karan Johar

Shahrukh Khan, Kajol

Hit

New York

Kabir Khan

John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan

Flop

Paathshala

Milind Ukey

Shahid Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Ayesha Takia, Swini Khara, Dwij Yadav, Ali Haji, Sushant Singh

Flop

Raftaar

Shamim Desai

Emraan Hashmi, Neha Dhupia, Sagarika Ghatge

Flop

Run Bhola Run

Neeraj Pathak

Govinda, Tusshar Kapoor, Amisha Patel, Celina Jaitly

Flop

Saif Ali Khan's next

Imtiaz Ali

Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone

Average

Shortcut - The Con is On

Neeraj Vora, Roshan Andrews

Akshaye Khanna, Arshad Warsi, Amrita Rao, Simi Garewal, Sanjay Dutt, Chunky Pandey

Flop

Tasveer

Nagesh Kukunoor

Akshay Kumar

Flop

Teen Patti

Leena Bajaj

Amitabh Bachchan, R Madhavan, Sushmita Sen, Raima Sen, Mahesh Manjrekar, Irrfan Khan, Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff, Danny Denzongpa, Sharadha Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Saira Mohan

Average

Three Idiots

Rajkumar Hirani

Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, R Madhavan

Hit

Tum Mile

Kunal Deshmukh

Emraan Hashmi, Soha Ali Khan

Flop

Veer

Anil Sharma

Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Lisa Lasarus, Jackie Shroff

Flop

Wake Up Sid

Ayan Mukerji

Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Khanna

Flop

Wanted Dead And Alive

Prabhu Deva

Salman Khan, Ayesha Takia, Om Puri, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sayaji Shinde, Asseem Merchant, Vinod Khanna, Sajid

Flop

What's Your Raashee?

Ashutosh Gowarikar

Harman Baweja, Priyanka Chopra

Flop

Yahoo

Ken Ghosh

Shahid Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Jiah Khan

Flop

Yash Raj Films' Next Untitled

Anurag Singh

Shahid Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee

Flop

And there you have it. According to my calculations; Billo Barber, Dehli 6, Housefull, Kites, Main Aur Mrs Khanna, My Name is Khan and Three Idiots should all be hits! My criteria for judging what might work and what might fail is pretty much all down to the star cast! A bit of a weak way of choosing but hopefully a few of my predicitions will come good! Roll on 2009!