Movie Review : Partner - Chemistry like never before

David Dhawans Partner starring Govinda and Salman Khan which released last friday is one hell of a roller coaster ride.To enjoy this movie, u definitely need to be in a land of no logics.But u r sure to go back home smiling and feeling good that u laughed a lot.This one is a laughter medicine for those who are depressed and it is sure to create atleast a smile evn on a dead man.


The movie is all about the wonderful chemistry between Govinda and Salman Khan, two senior actors seen for the first time(full length role)sharing the screen space.Each actor is best utilised by the director and the script writer giving no scope for any of them to dominate.The movie is inspired by the Will smith starrer 'Hitch', but it has got a identity of its own.'Cool Prem'(Salman) is a love guru and helps anyone who needs to fall in love.but he hesitates to help 'Stupid Bhaskar'(Govinda) who has fallen for his boss and also one of the wealthiest and most successful woman(Katrina).Somehow Bhaskar convinces his guru and wins his lady love.Meanwhile, Prem himself is head over heels on a journalist Naina(Lara Dutta), but he faces a lot of problems in his own love life.He needs to convince Nainas son Rohan(Ali Haji) to win her heart and finally after a lot of misunderstanding, he succeeds.
Govinda has yet again delivered his best and it is great to see him comeback.He was completely overshadowed in Priyan's 'Bhaagam Bhag' by Akshay Kumar and was lost in an ocean of stars in 'Salaam-e-Ishq'.Even though Salmans role is quite similar to one he portrayed in 'No Entry' and 'Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai', he totally rocks in this movie as the helpless guru for Govinda.The two leading ladies has little to perform, but that is totally expected in a David Dhawan movie.The director has once again proved that he is the comedy king of Bollywood.
The movie has some of the best one liners ever and kudos to Sanjay Chell for that.The choreography by Bosco-Ceaser is excellent and it is always a pleasure to see Govinda dancing inspite of his flabs.Both Salman and Govinda dances as if they were in some sort of competition and it is hard to judge who dances better.The songs by Sajid-Wajid are too good and if anyone doesnt own a cd of Partner is sure to buy after watching the movie.The title track " Do u wanna partner" does justice to the title and you would definitely sing this track all the way back home.
The movie has its own flaws too.The second half drags and there are a lot of unwanted scenes.There is a separate track by Rajpal Yadav playing or rather immitating both the versions of Don.He is good, but was this track necessary at all?A similar track was noticed in David Dhawans Mujse Shaadi Karogi, where Rajpal imitated Shah Rukh in Josh.
Like mentioned before, this is a movie without any logic and so dont expect any.The movie was made only to entertain and make u laugh throughout, atleast that was the way it was promoted. A must watch for the weekends with your family and friends.One would not yawn at any point of time and you "do not wanna partner" to enjoy this movie.

Movie Review- July 4 : A sheer waste of time

Pic courtesy: Indiaglitz

All of us make mistakes in life and watching July 4 starring Dileep and Roma is one of the recent ones I did.

July 4 is supposed to be Dileeps lucky date in terms of his releases.Some of his previous movies like Meesha Madhavan, CID Moosa etc, released on the same date had set the box office on fire. Well,the title and the story of the movie has no connection except for the fact that a certain incident is bound to happen on the same date and it doesnt really matter if its different too. Worst part is that the some of the characters keep repeating the date ''July 4" in the movie when it is justifiable to say only 4th .Dileep doesnt have any recent hits to his credit(except for Sathyan Anthikads Vinodayathra) and so he has tried his luck naming the movie based on his sentiment or superstition to finally taste success. We could also see the director Joshy's name in the credits as 'Joshiey' which is again, based on numerolgy. Too bad for both of them, the movie is a whole load of crap. One should not believe on dates and numerolgy to have a success and thats the only thing to learn after watching the movie.

The movie starts off in a central jail, where ACP Ramachandran(Siddique) gets transferred to.His transfer has a lot of hidden intentions.He wants to stop one of the inmates , Gokul Das(Dileep) from getting bailed on July 4th(thts the only connection) and he starts torturing him in prison to provoke him for bad conduct. Incidentally, Das has been sentenced for 3 years for stabbing a police officer which by the way happened to be our ACP. A jailor Potti(Innocent) feels sympathetic and listens to Das' past. Das (who had a terrible past narrated in the 70's and 80's style) and his friends in Mumbai are a group of thugs and they happen to be on the hitlist of the encounter specialists.Das escapes from Mumbai to lead a happy life and ends up becoming a taxi driver in Coimbatore.Thats when he meets the heroine sreepriya(Roma) who is from a wealthy family and then after a couple of incidents, he becomes their driver. One fine day, some baddies chase Das and Sreepriya on the way from coimbatore and somehow gets stuck in a forest. Now comes the twist in the tale.The situations right from the scene where Das becomes their driver till this chase was preplanned by Das himself along with his old friends from Mumbai. The rest of the story is to answer a few questions in the audiences mind like why,when, how and for what, with some more twists in between ,which again is so predictable.

The movie reminds us of the movies in the 80s(where a step dad is behind the wealth of his step daughter and he with his police pal sets to destroy her), mixed with plots from certain hindi movies. One wonders whether was it really 'Joshiey' who held the megaphone for this movie or not. A bad output from the really talented director who infact is responsible for some of the best movies and hits in the malayalam cine industry.

The screenplay has too many flaws and at times, the scenes do not make any sense and connection at all.Regarding performance, Dileep as Gokul Das does not do comedy here except for a few scenes.He is composed but not at his best. Roma as the heroine is pathetic in terms of her acting abilities and lip sync. The story revolves around the heroine and so the casting crew should have opted for a better heroine.Siddique, Devan, Cochin Haneefa, Riyaz Khan has nothing new to perform in this movie.Apart from them, Janardhanan, Vijayaraghavan, Salim Kumar,Shammi Thilakan come in cameos.

The music by Ouseppachan is aweful and a particular song is a direct lift from Guru's Aey Heirathen. They havent left the music also from plagiarism.Cinematography and Editing offers nothing new.

To sum up, this movie is not advisable for those are wants entertainment in the form of cinema becuz you would for sure regret paying the tickets during the movie itself. One can wait for it to be aired on any of the Television channels in a few years .Infact, the movie is not worth any wait.Please avoid.

Movie Review : Hallo. Watch it only for Mohanlal

The views expressed are personal.

' Hallo' , a brand new offering from the Rafi mecartin team , promised a laugh riot before the release and guess what, unlike the usual promises made by the film makers to lure the public to watch their movie, this one did live upto its expectation.
The movie belongs completely to mohanlal who with ease has portrayed the role of a drunken lawyer. There has been never been any actor in the Malayalam film industry who could carry such a role with such finesse. His character reminds us of his older movies like adhipan, No.20 madras mail, ayaal kadha ezhudukayaanu .
However, the story offers nothing new. It's a usual tried and tested story in Malayalam movies of greedy relatives and their goons who are hell bent on eliminating the next heir of a wealthy family, which the director duo themselves had attempted in some of their earlier movies. But this movie is different in terms of its presentation and of course mohanlal. Mohanlal plays a drunken lawyer who never goes to courts, but is a regular visitor at all the bars in and around. He has a flashback for this behavior of his and he holds his own parents responsible for it. However, its one accidental phone call that changes his life and that's why the title. Followed by which, a series of murders happen and at the end the suspense is revealed is a very unrealistic way inside a house with so many onlookers including a fleet of police.
The first half is racy with enough thrills and comedy, while the second half is a bit letdown in terms of the way the various twists gets unfolded. But one cannot expect a complete thriller out of the director duo. Their genre of movies is comedy and a complete family entertainer which they have delivered with conviction.
Among the performances, the heroine Parvati Melton does a fairly good job being a newcomer in the Malayalam industry, though she has a very little to perform. But she should be the next choice as a heroine in this industry which is still ruled by aged superstars ( though somewhere in the movie, she is mentioned as 18 years old which is rather very unconvincing). Jagathy who acts as mohanlals sidekick is not at his best but nevertheless, this talented actor could have enacted only whatever he had been offered. Rest of the comedians are wasted as the entire comedy situations in the movie moves around the hero. Veteran actor Madhu has also been wasted in an extended guest appearance role as the heroines father. Other actors like siddique, riza bawa, jagadeesh, janardhanan, ganesh kumar, madhu warrier have only done what they usually do.
The songs are average, the pick of the lot being chella thamara and mazhavillin. The choreography is appreciable with all the dance numbers having a north indian touch but tht is only because of the story.
Hallo, like its title, is different from the current comedy genre in the industry where sub standard and double meaning dialogues prevail. The movie is an out and out entertainer for all ages and does not bore you at all. This is yet another comeback vehicle for Mohanlal and one would hope him to have this kind of comic timing and elegant acting in all his movies that are to come.

My view : Sivaji - The loose script.

The views about this movie are personal and any coincidences to any other review is only because someone somewhere is thinking just like me.

At last the most awaited tamil movie of the year has finally seen the light with a release date that kept fluctuating every fortnight and thus making the producers of all the smaller movies to postpone their release dates. There were contests in tv , radio , websites and evn in shopping malls to win the tickets of the rajnikanth-shankar movie. There were fans in some parts of tamil nadu who were wishing their super star by offering themselves to have food from the temple grounds and piercing thier tounges.. Such was the hype created for this movie that CNN-IBN and Headlines Today had a half an hour slot abt rajnikanth a week before the release. I didn’t want to miss the excitement either, but it was next to impossible for me to get hold of the tickets. Somehow when I got an opportunity, I made use of it.
Even before the release of sivaji, the story was out in various websites. But looking at shankars and rajnikanths movie track record, the original story used to be entirely different from what came out before the release. Well, to be frank, that was my expectation too. Half an hr past the movie itself, u know wher the story is heading to and it was exactly what i had read a couple of months back. That was my first disappointment. The story is very simple , a rich software engineer (obviously our superstar) --who was infact very poor before , returns to chennai from the states to build his dream of setting up educational institutes and hospitals that would give away free service. He comes with 200 crores ( a software engineer and 200 crores????) , but ends up paying most of his money as bribe for starting his venture. At last, he gets the permission to start the construction.Oh I forgot to mention the villain who comes in between, must be becuz he happens to be the most insignificant bad guy in the whole of rajni movies. The villain played by Suman ( role rejected by mohanlal and amitabh.Now, i know why!) is also in the same 'business' of colleges and hospitals and he gets paranoid seeing all what sivaji is upto. He starts doing so many things to bring sivaji down and finally he succeeds and he also manages to make sivaji a pauper . Oh god, did i forget the heroine now? The heroine comes some wher in between and shakes a few legs.the irony is sivaji wud get married only to a girl with 'tamil kalaachaaram', but in all the dance and dream sequences, he imagines her in 'hardly wearing clothes kalaachaaram'. Getting back to the story, sivaji becomes a pauper and decides to take revenge on all who has 'karuppu panam' wid them. He, with a one rupee coin ( given by the villain as a sort of 'pitchai') , transforms into his second avatar--this time the boss, becomes even richer and finally succeeds to fulfill his dream.In the meanwhile, our sivaji gets married and is a man of gr8 reputation in the society.I had a doubt at this point. If sivaji wanted to see the poor gettng eradicated from the society, why does he need such a huge home to live in, flashy four wheelers and even helicopters for him to travel. Y doesnt he donate all this to the poor ?? Fine, now the cops are behind him , the villains are behind him , but its his own wife that finally manages to send him behind bars. In a very illogical way, sivaji dies in prison and comes back as MGR – mottai boss ( third avatar! gawd !!! ) to finish his villains in a matrix cum spider man style and thts wher the movie ends. A usual rags to riches to rags to evn richer story which we had seen in all the recent movies of rajnikanth leaving alone baba and chandramukhi.
Sad to see such a delivery from some of the best technicians in the industry This movie had an unsual combination of shankar-rajni-a.r.rahman-thotta dharani-k..v. anand and also AVM. The movie , in all respects , defies logic in various sequences and it need not be pinpointed for one to find it out. A shankar movie usually has a different class and he manages to convey a message in his movies.This movie has a wafer thin story line and a very weak script. It seems, shankar had written the script for this movie during his sleep.The first half is supposed to be filled with laughter and romance, the second half with the usual rajni masalas. Rajni is too old to romance , and tht too with a heroine who luks so young (Vaidvukarishi, who acted as sivajis mom , luked younger than rajni on screen). The comedy in the first half is one among the plus points of the movie, the others being ar rahman, and also the cinematography. Vivek has done a wonderful job again, he had completely over shadowed rajni in the first half who acts as his maternal uncle. His presence is through out in the first half and not to be seen in the second half.One would wonder why and at times wud want more of him. He evn gets to say the punch dialogues here. Coming back to the heroine, she is the worst heroine ever for the superstar. Too young looking (not her fault , though) , no expressions and very little to do in the movie except to look gud.
There was also a lot of hype regarding the song sequences and the choreography. But ruling out the sets, location and the music, thers nothin new. The worst picturised and choreographed song is the rajni-intro song itself which comes from no where in the movie and that too after 15 mins of his actual intro. With such good lyrics, the song could have been picturised in a better way than roping the superstars ex-heroine.Infact the song reminds you of Anniyans 'randakka randakka' again by shankar with a similar back ground and choreography.Probably becuz, randakka rhymes with balelakka !!!
There was somethng which actually amazed me when watching the movie. Theres a punch dialogue of sivaji which is currently famous about pigs coming in groups and lion being single. This is a dialogue from an arjun starrer GIRI which had released about two years ago. Sad that no one noticed it whn arjun said, and now when the very same words came from the superstars' mouth, it became a huge hit among the masses. Well, such is the power of the superstar and we got to admit that. The one scene which is absurd would be when rajni gets introduced to shreyas neighbour who insists him to marry any one of his daughter. The daughters look dark and for that reason sivaji rejects them. A superstar with such a stature has been degraded in that particular scene, especially when thers a lot of talk and gimmicks in the movie itself abt sivaji being dark !!!

I guess, thts too many information abt the movie. You would have to watch the movie to see some of the wierdest and most illogical scenes ever in Indian cinema, like sivajis interactive IBM notebook, office room concept, the final stunt scene where cash flies from a roof top. All this proves that the hype before the release wasnt created by the media alone.

To sum it up, if you want to watch the movie, pls keep your brains safely at home and never utter a word of discomfort like i did during the movie( in case , u r watching it in public).Sivaji is a complete let down; both from the superstar and from the superdirector. This is neither a true Rajnikanth movie nor is this 'a film by shankar' !!!

the names...how,when,what and why!!!

Somewhere in april 1981, i was named vimal , obviously after a long screening process.My dad suggested names like rajesh, jijesh etc. yewww...i hate names that end with 'sh' and by god, I would have come up with a different name by the time I grew up.Vimal is a wonderful name and I thank my mom for suggesting and naming me that. Vimal means pure...dont know how many could corelate them after knowing me.None of us in the family tree has had a pet name and so neither did we(me n my elder bro).But being the youngest in my family, my dad calls me 'kunjan', and that too very rarely.
Over the years, I got a lot of nicknames though.During my school days, one brat named Vinayan(still friends!!!) called me 'gundumani' as I was abnormally fat(the word abnormal is used here in a different context altogether, cant mention everythng here, this isnt a autobiography, rt?). The name vanished after my schooling, but that wasnt the end.During my +2 and UG, I was called 'nattu' and 'pottu' simultaneously for my looney antics(atleast that was their reason for naming me such).One of my senior, Gowri, even send a bday card to my home with the name Nattu.Believe me, when the post man came with the card, my mom sent him away saying theres no one by tht name.And guess what, my friends and seniors call me these names even today.
Then came my favourite nickname which I myself use it now in different places - officially. 'Vimmuuu'- - two friends of mine during my MBA, Priya and Anita, started calling me and that too during the early days of our college.Now because of them and also thanks to orkut, people in my office including the companys director calls me vimmuuu. It is also different in its spelling and it was Anita who came up with such a unique spelling - double m, triple u. Now, another friend of mine,Divya, even has a meaning for it. Its like , V (spelt as W.e. ) , double me and triple you; ie, whatever you give me in doubles would be given back to you in triple folds.So people, when you are planning to write ' vimmuuu ' the next time, please keep the spelling in mind, I also have plans to patent that name...hehehe....

Nicknames like our real names also stay forever, atleast thats how we want it to be; for various reasons.

the pilot !!!

I am no stranger to this world. The names Vimal, preferred being called as Vimmuuu.It isnt difficult knowing or understanding me. Im not one of those complicated characters u meet in this funny world. My life has always been an open book while I am considered to be an ocean of secrets for others(lately, both these traits have landed me up in trouble). This whole blogging thingy is alien to me. Infact, this is also one of my first few experiences in writing.

I have come across many blogs, both interesting and highly boring and I really dont know how this is going to turn out to be.I also have no idea why I started this activity now, either I would have become so jobless and bored in life or it could be because I wanted to express a lot of things here which I am not supposed to in the world that I am living.

Well, the title of the blog itself suggests that i am going to start all sorts of crap here and so ladies and gentlemen of all ages,whoever goes through my postings, please bear me with me if you find anything offending.I have always expressed my views blatantly and I have never and will not take back whatever I said or did.However, you could post your comments or suggestions here and I would have no issues in that.