Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Sanjay Dutt's award winning movie: Vaastav

Today is a day when Sanjay Dutt's fans will be very sad and depressed. Their hero has been sentenced to 6 years in prison under the Arms Act. So, forgetting about the circumstances of the case, let us remember some good movies that he has done. One of them was Vaastav. Sanjay Dutt had acted in a variety of movies before and after Vaastav, but it was Vaastav that gave him a super reputation, that of being a good actor. The movie, released in October, 1999 won Sanjay Dutt the following awards:
1. Year 2000 Filmfare Best Actor
2. Year 2000 Screen Weekly Awards for Best Actor
Sanjay Dutt in Vaastav

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Partner: the comedy is okay

If you like subtle humour or more refined humor, then maybe this movie is not for you. The humor is loud, throughout the movie. In addition, if you looking for a fully cogent storyline, then again, maybe this is not the movie for you. But, I liked sections of the movie incredibly. I did not regret the trip to the movie hall to see the movie, although I would not go again. I would not mind seeing the movie again when it comes on TV in a couple of months / weeks.
First of all, this is not an original movie, but is copied from a Will Smith starring English movie, Hitch. Secondly, the movie does not have too much of a story line, but has lots of skin show, including a large amount from Salman Khan. People who like his bare chested display will enjoy the movie. Then, there are some beautiful locations that are displayed in some of the movies.
The songs of the movie are great, you can catch these songs on Youtube (You're my Love, Soni De Nakhre, Maria Maria, Partner, Dupatta Tera).
Now about the story: There are essentially 4 main characters of the movie, with Salman Khan playing the role of Prem, a person who has lived in a family with 7 sisters, and hence he knows the psychology of girls inside out. He uses this knowledge to help boys get closer to girls whom they love by essaying the role of a 'loveguru', and he does this in a way that he will only support those who are doing this out of love, not lust. Govinda plays the role of a simple buffoon like character named Bhaskar, madly in love with the super-rich and attractive Priya, the heiress to a 1000 crore empire. He comes to the loveguru (Salman) for help, but when Salman gets to know about his quest, he laughs him off. And seems quite right, after all, how will a simple salary earning man get a sexy, rich heiress to even meet him, forget fall in love with him ?
Anyhow, Govinda keeps on pursuing him to give him advice, including following him to Phuket, where Salman has gone for a holiday along with his sister and her kids. He keeps on pestering Salman, and eventually, after an adventure of Salman with a missile, and then an accident of Govinda's bus, Salman agrees to help him.
So, now they are back in India and Salman advices him, while at the same time moaning over how uncouth and backward Govinda actually is. So, it starts with Govinda attending a meeting where Katrina is looking for financial advice. Adviced to make an outstanding entry, Govinda does so in the meeting, criticizing all his seniors, throwing some strong advice to Katrina, and actually getting fired on the spot. However, as predicted by Salman, Katrina appreciates his strong non Yes Ma'am attitude and asks him out to dinner. Govinda, over the next 1-2 days before the dinner, is shown many times quivering like a leaf when Katrina speaks to him, at one time falling off the roof and onto a passing truck.
He takes some advice from Salman, and also uses his own basic instinct and keeps on vowing Katrina. At the same time, there is another story ongoing in terms of Lara Dutta. She is a photographer and journalist for a Mumbai masala newspaper, and trying to take photographs of the Chota Don, Rajpal Yadav. He finds out and chases her, and Salman rescues her by mistake. He does that once again and is smitten by her. Then he discovers that she has a son (Ali Haji), and is a single mom, and yet he stays on (something new for Bollywood where the concept of a single mom and the hero being unfazed by the fact is an interesting twist). She is hesitant about Salman but leaves the decision to her son accepting Salman. The kid plays a nice role, and accepts Salman, in fact saving Salman once when Lara questions Salman's dedication about caring for her and her kid.
Both these stories converge when Katrina's dad rejects Govinda and takes her elsewhere for her marriage to somebody else. All the characters reach to the place, and eventually, in a very shallow and non-believable scheme, persuade the father to marry his super-rich daughter to a guy who does not have more than a few thousands to his name.
But this is not the end, as Lara believes that her friend has been duped by a guy who took advice from the love guru Salman, and when she discovers that Salman is the one, she acts like a lady scorned. She gets the whole thing published, including putting Salman and Govinda on the front page and highlighting about how they used a strategy to get Katrina. So, things are badly broken up for some time, and then Salman manages to convince Katrina (although she apparently did not need much convincing), and then convince Lara. In the end, there is a fairly longish scene where Govinda keeps on interrupting Salman's marriage night to get tips, and that is where the movie ends.
Rajpal Yadav plays a nice bit role, Puneet Issar plays an even more bit role as the guy from Haryana who beats up Rajpal twice. Salman and Govinda are nice role players, and even though the whole movie seems unnatural, individually they impress. Katrina does not have to do much except look good, which she does. Overall a nice movie, although some of the humor is way below classy level, what with urinating on the villain, discussions about a transvestite, and a prolonged interruption of the honeymoon scene.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh: A nice sweet movie

Sometimes, when you watch a movie, you realize the sheer simplicity in the script, the way the movie made, and that makes you appreciate the movie even more. If you remember a series of movies such as Choti Si Baat, Golmaal, etc, these were very likable movies. They did not have the super-stars, they did not have the record settings budgets, or the beautiful locations, but you would not really miss all that.
Instead you end up watching human emotions at play, at a place that could be next to somewhere you have stayed before or are currently staying, and happening to someone you know. This movie attempts to touch you in that way, and mostly succeeds. Our lives have become faster and this also translated into watching movies that are more fast paced, but at times, things can slow down and you can relax and watch such a movie.
Main Meri Patni Aur Woh
This is essentially a movie of 2 characters, Mithilesh (Rajpal Yadav), a librarian living in Lucknow and his relationship with his wife, who is taller, beautiful and apparently more suitable to somebody much better than him. This creates a series of insecurities in him, and the movie is all about that.
Main characters are Rajpal Yadav, Rituparna Sengupta, Kay Kay Menon. Mithilesh is on the lookout for a girl, and he ends up meeting Veena (Rituparna), who is taller than him, beautiful and charming. He gets interested in her, but it would seem that she is meant for somebody better than him. However, Veena agrees to the marriage and makes Mithilesh surprised and very happy.
However, the height thing is a great creator of insecurity, and combined with the obvious beauty of Veena, Mithilesh thinks about each and every compliment paid to Veena, and about every male that she comes into contact with. But she is happy with him, and just when he is starting to get comfortable, in comes Kay Kay Menon as the college colleague of Veena. Now Kay is a confident, taller and more apparently attractive person.
Veena is comfortable in the company of Kay Kay Menon, and they are old friends; somehow Mithilesh is not able to feel quote some comfortable in their company, he does not share their old memories, and his insecurities start to make their way back. He tries to be more like Akash (Kay Kay), even copying his drinking and smoking habit, but he cannot increase his height.
In the depth of these insecurities, he decides that Veena will be better with Akash rather than with him, after all she is much more suited to a person much better like Akash rather than Mithilesh. Veena has not done anything to give him such an impression, but even then..
He has not asked Veena as to what she feels like, so when he tells her about all this, she is shocked and goes back to her parents. He realizes as to what he has done, and in a touching scene (set in a normal surrounding), he goes to get her back. Superb bit of acting.
The movie overall is enjoyable, slightly drags in the second half, but overall I liked it. It is nice to watch a movie with a difference, about normal people facing normal issues and the play on human emotions is nice to watch. One wishes for more movies like these; the advantage could be that the movie would be so low budget that even if it turns out to be a sleeper hit, it should enthuse the producer and director to do more of these.

Naya Daur: The message still relevant today

Naya Daur is a movie made way, way back. It was made in 1957, and was made by BR Chopra (directed and produced). Why talk about this now, especially when it is 50 years old. Well, the movie is going to be re-released in color by the BR films banner (interview of Ravi Chopra). After the re-release of Mughal-e-Azaam in color, this is the second movie to be so released.
Converting a black-and-white movie to color is a fairly challenging and time consuming task, and this current effort by BR Films has taken 2-3 years. The projected release is in the next few months (I don't have an exact date since one place quoted Aug 3 and the other quoted a date in October).
Naya Daur is a very interesting movie. I watched it when it came on Doordarshan a long time back, and it struck a chord in me, and then I was reading about it again, and it is a movie that seems very relevant even now. It was relevant in the time of the industrial revolution 150 years back, and is still relevant in these times of offshoring, and with lots of discussions going on about growth in India not leading to a growth of the labour market.
Naya Daur has a fairly good cast, starring Dilip Kumar in his prime, Ajit, Jeevan and Vyjanthimala. The overall theme of the movie is about the march of modernisation leading to poor workers being rendered jobless, and hence sinking into poverty. The movie does make an attempt to portray this as a human choice, with the hope that people will take a considered decision to use machines as long as it does not affect the jobs of people. The movie is also about a romance almost breaking up the friendship between 2 close friends, and although this loss of friendship leads to another machine coming in and affecting more jobs, the story still revolves around the concept of machine vs. people. We all know that in this world, the choice is not so simple, given that we have accepted all the machines shown in the movie in our life, 50 years on.
What is Naya Daur about ? It's about a village affected by modernization. Dilip Kumar and Ajeet are fast friends who live in a village and both of them love Vyjanthimala. They have a falling out, and turn hostile to each other. Now Dilip Kumar runs a horse-carriage and depends on that for his livelihood, like many others. In addition, many of the villagers depend on the local factory for work, and the factory owner is shown as a considerate man who cares for workers.
All this changes when the factory owner's son, Jeevan arrives and the factory owner proceeds on a pilgrimage. The son is more profit oriented and gets machines over to do the factory, relieving many of the workers. At the same time, he gets a bus to do the same trip that the horse-carriage men used to do, this cutting into their income as well. This is a double whammy for the villagers, and they don't like all this happening, but are really powerless to do anything.
The spectacular part of the movie happens now, when the die is set on a bet that can change everything. Jeevan and Dilip Kumar have a bet where a competition will be held between the bus and the horse-carriage, and whoever wins gets to take all; hence more machines and buses, or more jobs for the workers. The race is spectacular, and you know who wins.
This is a concept that has been there for time immemorial, and in the present global context, the movement of software / legal / call center jobs to India and manufacturing to China in the quest for a cheaper option and the effect that is having on middle class America can be equated. Now you can say, technology is good and will have an overall positive effect, but this movie shows the effect on this on the ones who are truly impacted.
Some of the songs of the movie are real popular (ude jab jab zulfe teri, Yeh Desh Hai Veer Jawanon Kaa, Maang ke saath tumhara), you can view them on YouTube



Sunday, July 22, 2007

Life in a Metro

I had watched this movie, but was not too terribly impressed with it. However, it seemed to be a movie made to get into good favour with reviewers, and it seemed to do that. However, a couple of days back I was having a conversation with a colleague, and when I asked her about her opinion, she was dismissive. Her impression being the movie was all about sex, extra-marital affairs and the like. And she wondered whether there really are characters like the one played by Kay Kay Menon, the under-current being the hope that no she knew ever got involved with a character like that.
The movie comes with some good credentials. It is directed by Anurag Basu, whose last movie Gangster was fairly decent. It stars a number of middle level stars, including people acclaimed for their actings skills.
The cast is Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Shilpa Shetty, Shiney Ahuja, Kay Kay Menon, Sharman Joshi, Kangana Ranaut, Dharmendra, and Nafisa Ali. Quite a handful, and considering that the director tries to develop each of these stories, the movie can get a bit muddled. Thus, if you are watching this movie at home, give it your undivided attention, else you will miss sections of the movie and not figure out what is going on.
For me, the epicenter of the movie was the character played by Kay Kay Menon, with his portrayal of a man essentially interested in only what works for him; he has issues in his marriage and hence cannot be bothered with trying to improve things and does not mind rubbing his wife's face in the mud by claiming that he is the one who is running the house and hence his wife (Shilpa Shetty) should essentially shut up and stop cribbing. He also has a sexual affair going on with his employee (Kangana Ranaut); no point bothering about trying to classify it as a love affair since he is not actually interested in any other aspect to the relationship other than the sex. He is equally willing to rub her face in the mud by claiming that he has done good for her by getting her a better deal in the office, and this should be enough for her to continue this relationship.
Shilpa Shetty, his almost estranged wife, forms a friendly relationship with an aspiring actor Shiney Ahuja, and even though it is friendly, you can almost see it going the way of a bored housewife not getting any love in her marriage, and slowly falling in love with a person respecting her, eventually going all the way towards an affair. When she discovers her husband's affair, a barrier breaks, and she almost falls for Shiney, allowing him to touch her in a way that is definitely intimate, but then realizing that she is going into an affair, and the shame of it pulls her back from the affair. In her mind, her husband's relationship is almost equated with her almost ready to fall into another relationship (and this part seemed a bit harsh to me - even though adultery is in the mind, equating a person's happening relationship with another that did not quite happen seems a bit harsh).
Then there is the character of Sharman Joshi, who works for Kay Kay Menon and is seduced by the notion of a higher job. For this reason, he is willing to let his flat be used as a sexual encounter place by his boss. But his portrayal is basically that of a good man. Even when he comes to know that his love, Kangana is having an affair with Kay Kay, and his flat is being used for that purpose, his love seems to be a dead thing. But he still supports Kangana when she faces the cold nature of Kay Kay and realizes that she was being totally used, or maybe that she felt something when there was nothing, just a simple transaction where she was using her body to get favours in the office. Shocking for her, but this is what Kay Kay feels like
and does not hesitate in telling her causing her to almost die.
There are more characters. Konkona Sen Sharma, Shilpa's sister, is looking for a husband through marriage portals. She meets Irrfan Khan, but is put off by his attitudes. However, she meets him later, and eventually charms upto him. When he is going for marriage, she realizes that she wants to marry him, and he ditches his marriage.
I did not like the Dharmendra-Nafisa Ali angle. The scenes were not fleshed through enough, and given that this story could have been so good, it was more like a filler in the movie. Either it should have been given more time, or dropped altogether.
Overall, the movie was okay. I live in a metro, most of my friends live in the metros with ages between 25 and 40, and I don't know anyone who has a story like Kay Kay and Shlipa. I don't think that life in a metro is all like that, would be a very very small percentage. But maybe I live in a different metro than the one in the movie.
The role enacted by Kay Kay was very good, given that you would have mostly hated the character as a cad, and what better praise for a role rather than the fact that a person got emotionally involved in the character.
Music was good, and I really like the 'Alvida' song (YouTube)

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom: What a waste

What a waste. To have some super-stars such as Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek and Preity Zinta, along with lesser stars such as Bobby Deol and Lara Dutta in a movie that is simply unwatchable seems such a big waste. YOu can think of the movie as a musical, but even musicals have a story worth mentioning.
So let's do the story bit now: 2 strangers Rikki (Abhishek Bachchan) and Alvira (Preity Zinta) wait for their respective trains at Waterloo station in London. A fairly crowded place, they end up unwillingly sharing the same table at the cafe. When Abhishek, who is pictured as a fun-loving Punjabi youth from small-town Bhatinda in Punjab tries to flirt with the more middle-class and oh-so-sophisticated seeming Alvira, she tries to ward him off by moving her ring to the ring finger and claiming that she is engaged. So, naturally, so as to not lose face, he also has to claim that he is engaged, and Abhishek dutifully does so.
Now they need to invent stories about how they met their fiancees (Lara Dutta and Bobby Deol as the fictional fiancees); so Rikki met Anaida (Lara Dutta) at the Ritz in Paris the same night as the crash of Lady Diane (10 years ago), while in another implausible story Alvira met a handsome and suave Steve Singh (Bobby Deol) when he saved her from a crushing death under the falling statue of Superman. And being a lawyer, he helped in the case against Madame Tussauds for negligence and mental agony and whatever else happens in such cases. so, these fictional accounts took a fair amount of the story.
In a seemingly strange twist, as these 2 different by class and society people talk at Waterloo station, they seem to be moving closer to each other; even though Abhishek does not show any change (he does not become classy or suave), and Alvira remains her snotty self (except for the episode of doing what the other person wanted them to do where she runs up a down escalator). Anyhow, this incongruity apart, they exchange numbers.
They meet up again, in the guise of a wrong number, and arrange to meet at a disco. Now that they have the pretense of having fiancees, they have to arrange for some and so out come Bobby Deol and Lara Dutta (do these qualify as double roles since they also played fictional fiancees?).
And so Abhishek hires Laila (a call girl) to be his pretend fiancee (she is not suave and sophisticated by any criteria) and Preity threatens and eventually gets Bobby (a character more bumbling than confident) to play her fiancee. Once at the club, Preity and Lara make cat's eyes at each other and be nasty to each other. At the same time, there is a dance competition going on in which these 2 couples take an active part (and are obviously the best dancers). Bobby in the meantime has fallen head over heels over Lara Dutta.
Thankfully the final act happens where Bobby goes to Abhishek and eventually tells him the truth. And you have a second generation dosti sequence between Dharmendra's and Amitabh's sons in the same kind of bike with a side car with both of them going to Preity's flat so that Abhishek can woo her. And after some small drama, he does woo her; a happy ending for them, and a happy ending to the torture that I was going through.
And where was Amitabh Bachchan in all this? He was supposed to play a guest appearance, and he does this by being dressed in a feathered dress and singing the title song (nice song), but it popped all through in many different occasions and times and with a Punjabi touch, getting irritating by the end.
And there you have it. How could Shaad Ali (having made Saathiya and Bunty & Babli) have made such a film. This could have been a great film, getting into the characters, showing how the couple moved closer, showing some depth into the characters of Lara and Bobby. Instead the movie had essentially 3 total scenes as described above, with caricatures of Bobby and Lara, and nothing showing of the small town character of Abhishek except for tone of voice. Disappointing to the end.

Refer some videos related to the move at YouTube

Monday, July 9, 2007

Pyaasa: All time great movie

Guru Dutt in Pyaasa
It's not often that a Hindi Movie is ranked among the world's greatest movie, but Pyaasa, Gurudutt's monumental creation, has been ranked in the top 100 movies of all time. The movie, set 10 years after Indian independence, is a study in despair and social decay, and followed other path breaking social movies such as Awaara, Boot Polish, Do Bigha Zameen, and so on. If not for Kagaz ke Phool, this movie would have been without doubt one of Guru Dutt's best movies. It still is, but the other movie is also great. And Pyaasa follows the lighter, less social-burning-issue movies such as Mr. & Mrs. 55, Baazi, Jaal, and Aar Par.
The movie is about a society where people can betray anyone for money, including one's own brother, where love can be had from anyone, no matter who they are (a prostitute in this case). It is a movie about the long-standing battle between materialistic and spiritual desires, and eventually no solution. A sensitive man can maybe just give up in the face of selfishness and greed, and fight no more.
The other highlights of this movie are the excellent dialogs by Abrar Alvi, and the music, the music. The movie has such an excellent collection of songs that a musical collection is incomplete without some of these songs. You can hear and listen to some of them on Youtube (Jaane Woh Kaise Log The, Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par, Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye (an incredible song by Rafi), Sar Jo Tera Chakraye (Johhny Walker), Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein, Mushaira, Aaj Sanam Mohe Ang Laga Lo). The music was by SD Burman, lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi, and sung by Hemant Kumar, Muhammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt.
The movie is about this struggling poet called Vijay (Guru Dutt). He is unsuccessful in getting his poems published, with his own family mocking him as a good for nothing. To avoid this ridicule, he spends a fair amount of time out of home, and makes friends with a prostitute Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman) who takes a fancy for his poetry and for him. He also gets to meet an ex-girlfriend from college, Meena (Mala Sinha) who has married a rich man for his money (gives a fair amount of security). This man is a big publisher Mr. Ghosh (Rehman).
Mr. Ghosh starts getting suspicious of Meena and Vijay, and hires him a peon in his office, so as to belittle him. He refuses to publish poetry. He feels his suspicions are justified and sacks Vijay. Vijay is out on the street, when he encounters a beggar and gives him his coat. However, the beggar dies in front of a train, and due to the coat, all believe that Vijay is dead. He is in fact speechless due to seeing the beggar die in front of him.
Gulabo manages to get Mr. Ghosh to publish Vijay's poems, but when Vijay proclaims himself alive, Mr. Ghosh and Vijay's own brother get him declared mad and committed to an asylum. He escapes from there and enters his own death anniversary gathering where he sings the famous song 'Yeh Duniya Mil Bhi Jaye to Kya'. Soon after, his brother switches sides to recognize him for more money from another publisher. This is the final deceit for Vijay. He proclaims that he is not Vijay and walks off with Gulabo into obscurity.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Ek Ruka Hua Faisla: An excellent movie

So here I was watching the latest Hindi movie, full of highly paid mega-stars, with a big budget for the action sequences, dream songs being shot in different locations over the world, and so on. And all this financed by people like me, paying Rs. 120 for a ticket, and Rs. 25 for a bottle of water, and Rs. 40 for some cold drinks, and equally for something to eat.
And then I bought a disk from a nearby shop, and spent a spell-binding time watching this movie. It has almost no effects, no action sequences to speak of, no major stars, and its budget must have been minuscule. Almost all the entire movie has been shot in a room, with dialog being the core point.
The movie has been made by Basu Chaterjee in 1986, and stars graduates from the National School of Drama (Deepak Kejriwal, Pankaj Kapur, S. M Zaheer, M. K. Raina, K. K. Raina, Annu Kapoor as an old man, Shailendra Goel, etc). It is based on a 50's English movie, 12 angry men.
The movie is made based on the premise that the case is being decided a jury system. For those who do not know, a jury system is when 12 citizens (supposedly not influenced by media reports) sit in the court, and listen to everything and then decide. This is the system followed by the US, Britain (for certain cases). India dropped this system in 1959, after a major murder case that rocked the country. For details, click here.
So, leave aside the fact that India does not have a jury system for a long time, and enjoy the movie. For those who like serious cinema, this is an excellent movie, showing the interplay of emotions in a group, along with group dynamics, equally the power of belief in one's own opinion.
The movie is about the trial of a youth for murdering his father. The jury have sat through a long trial, heard all the evidence, and everybody believes that the jury discussion (in a cloistered room) will be short and return a guilty verdict. Well, all except one.
And that is the problem, the jury has to return a unanimous verdict or keep on discussing until they reach a verdict. The jury is ready to return a verdict, except for this one juror who does not believe in just declaring a verdict based on personal needs (leaving early, watching a movie, etc) and wants to go through a discussion (that is, deliberate) before declaring a verdict. He does not have a solid reason, and hence the group turns on him. However, in an impressive display of character, he stands his ground, and starts the discussion.
And this is the stage when the group dynamics start showing, and how in the heat of discussion, the true feelings start showing through. People's biases, bigotry, temper, all start showing through. (This movie should also be default viewing for those preparing for group discussions and part of management curricula).
Eventually, he manages to showcase the missing links, the loopholes in the vital clues, and testimonies, and eventually persuade all except Pankaj Kapoor. Pankaj is not so easily persuaded because his son has left him, and he has a bias against youth, but eventually he is also persuaded.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Bheja Fry: Very Enjoyable

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, enough to ignore some of the glitches of the movie. I really laughed through some of the scenes of the movie, and I really believe that this was genuine laughter, not forced laughter along with people next to me. This is not a big budget movie, it does not have planes or cars chasing each other at high speed or exploding in big fireballs; and most of all, it does not have any of the big super-stars. It does star some great actors - Rajat Kapoor, Sarika, Milind Soman, Bhairavi Goswami, Ranveer Shorey, Vinay Pathak and a couple more people. And that's it, these are the total number of people starring in the movie. What it has is a script of one evening-night and all the goings-on during that night.
Well, actually, some of that is not true. The beginning of the movie is set some time before the evening in question, where Bharat Bhushan (Vinay Pathak) bores the hell out of his co-passenger on the bus by singing and reciting his life story and dedication to music. They show him to be a simple person, but definitely not the person you would want to meet. Besides his music, he works in the Income Tax department.
The story is based on the stress-busting technique employed by a busy music executive, Rajat Kapoor. Once a week, he will try to get a fake talent hunt organized to get a new singer wanna-be, all for his personal entertainment. His wife Sarika (with whom he shares a close yet strained relationship) does not approve of this tendency of his. She is another singer, and considers what he does as a form of torture.
For this week's idiot-talent dinner, he is recommended Bharat Bhushan as the wanna-be and he dutifully invites him over for dinner. A killer today is that he hurt his back earlier in the day and had a doctor (Tom Alter) come over and recommend rest. This is also the evening when his wife tells him that she is leaving him and he suspects that she has gone to Milind Soman's house (he had stolen Sarika from Milind a couple of years earlier). Bharat Bhushan hears all this when he is here for dinner and then the movie moves into faster motion.
First he invites an old flame of Rajat over while thinking that he is talking to the doctor (remember the bad back, so Rajat is having difficulties getting up). By this time, Rajat is in a foul mood, blaming Bharat for his problems. Then he pretends to be a Bhojpuri film maker and calls up Milind Soman from the same phone (weak point: A lot of landline phones also have caller ID), and in a moment of idiocy, gives the phone number. Milind recognizes the number and eventually comes over. During the course of the evening, Bharat turns back Sarika who has come back by thinking she is the old flame in a way that she gets real mad. When Milind comes over, during the remainder of the movie, you see him trying hard to stop laughing at the things Rajat has to do and put up.
It turns out that Sarika may go elsewhere to another person, for whom they don't have the number or address. As Bharat Bhushan is being turned out of the house (you know that can't happen), he claims that he knows the phone number (because an income tax raid was conducted on the house of this person by Bharat's colleague, Ranveer). This is the occasion to bring in Ranveer and he comes in as a stiff, starched honest income tax person. The scenes where they worry about whether to get him over to the house (due to rich paintings hanging and worrying about a raid later) are real humorous.
Even after this, there are a couple more interesting scenes, one where Ranveer gets to know of his wife's adultery in a flash; one where Bharat finally gets to know the motive of his being called to Rajat's house; and how he finally screws up the reunion of Rajat with Sarika.
This was a tremendous effort by the director, Sagar Ballary; but it could do with a couple of improvements. For one, it looked like the entire movie was set in 2-3 sets, and looked too much like a theatre production; for another, even if it was a short movie, the relationship between Rajat and Sarika is not outlined enough to understand why she suddenly left; but in the end, this was a great movie.