Golmaal Returns - the extra suspicious wife and a murder (released in 2008)

When you get a successful film, there is a pressure to create a franchise, create more movies with the same set of actors and the director in the hope that viewers will also like this movie and make it successful. This has actually worked in many cases, with sequels of movies in Hollywood (Terminator, Pirates of the Carribean, Superman, Spiderman, etc) doing excellent business and providing riches to their creators. Of course there have been cases when the same success has not come to the next movie, but then there is no harm in trying. In the case of Bollywood, the concept of leveraging on the success of a previous movie is a pretty late one, only in the past decade that it has been seen. Golmaal indeed could be one of the first ones to make this a success, even though the sequels have no connection with the previous one in terms of story, but do have the same crew (director, and many actors and actresses being the same). Golmaal Returns was one such movie, which was released in 2008, in order to leverage the success of the earlier Golmaal (which was released in 2006).
Between the 2 movies, the director was the same (Rohit Shetty), and the main crew members were the same (Ajay Devgun, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi). Sharman Joshi was no longer there in the sequel, and the heroine was also changed, with Kareena Kapoor brought in to enhance the star power, and some additional actors and actresses also brought in. The movie was a hit, even though critics were not particularly impressed by the movie - the humour in the original Golmaal seemed pretty genuine, while the humor in this one seemed a bit forced, written in to try and put more humour in the script, and leaving a slight jarring edge. But no matter, audiences loved it, and it was a hit. The songs were also liked, with the music being composed by Pritam, and one song 'Thar kar Le' being composed by Ashish Pandit (and the lyrics for the movie were by Sameer).
Now onto the story. I was not particularly fascinated by the story, since the attempt seemed to be to bring as many characters into the storyline and use some incredible coincidences to push the story forward. So, here goes (and if you have not seen the movie and want to keep your suspense, do not read ahead of this point).
Gopal (Devgun) and Ekta (Kareena Kapoor) are a couple with 2 siblings - Esha (Amrita Arora) is the sister of Gopal, and Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor, playing a mute) is the brother of Ekta. Ekta is an avid watcher of hindi serials (particularly the Balaji type serials) and is very suspicious of Gopal. Gopal keeps on warning her from time to time to not be so suspicious, since it would create problems for them.

Gopal works in a fishing company and has some periodic clashes with people in his company (not very serious though), especially when he believes that his colleague is instigating his wife against him. And then something happens which would cause the suspicion of Ekta to become reality. He is coming home from work, when he sees a girl being assaulted by some hoodlums and saves Meera (Celina Jaitley) from those goons. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances, they are forced to spend the night together on a yacht (although nothing happens between them).
Now, when Gopal reaches home the next morning, there is going to be trouble. Ekta, ever suspicious, wants to know where he was; Gopal obviously cannot tell her the truth, so he lies that he was with a friend of his. When Ekta pushes him for the name of the friend, Gopal comes up with a name 'Anthony Gonsalves', with a fictitious address. However, Ekta is very suspicious and sends of a letter to Anthony, and in the coincidence of a lifetime, there is actually a person called Anthony Gonsalves and an actual address and the letter is received.
One of Gopal's juniors, Laxam Prasad (Shreyas Talpade), who claims to be a great problem solver, then decides to take the place of Anthony to ensure that Ekta is not suspicious. Another coincidence, Laxman is also the boyfriend of Meera, and Meera has not told him about this incident. And then the big problem, where a dead man is found where Gopal had fought the goons, and this is the same person Gopal's office with whom he had a tiff. This brings inspector Madhav (played by Arshad Warsi) on the scene; Madhav is in love with Gopal's sister but has a running feud with Gopal and is incredibly happy that there is a chance for him to put Gopal in a difficult position.
Eventually, Madhav learns that Laxman is not Anthony, and when they tell him about Meera (and in the meantime, Ekta leaves Gopal when she learns that he told her a lie), he tells Gopal that he better bring Meera quickly to the station if he wants to save himself. Gopal and Laxam hire Munni to play the role of Meera, which she is willing to do for the money. However, her boyfriend, Vasuli, currently behind bars, is not happy at this. And then Munni is kidnapped by the murderer.

And then starts a whole trail of events to try and find Munni, in the meantime Vasuli kidnaps Meera since he wants his Munni back, and then finally Gopal learns that his boss was behind the murder since he was smuggling drugs under the guise of the fishing business, and his colleague was killed because he found out. After some more drama, there is a happy ending.

Golmaal returns (DVD on Amazon)	Music for Golmaal returns - Amazon	Golmaal Returns - Movie on Flipkart

Songs from the movie Golmaal Returns: Tha Kar Ke (link) Vacancy (link) Tu Saala (link) Meow (link)

Tashan (released in 2008) - A much awaited movie, but acclaimed as a major disaster

Tashan was one of the most awaited movies of 2008. The movie was the first movie together of the new star couple (Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan) and hence very awaited. In addition, Akshay Kumar was also part of the star attraction, combined with Anil Kapoor in a negative role, some much awaited (and different) music by Vishal-shekhar, and the much-talked about major attraction of the movie, Kareena Kapoor in a size zero and in a green bikini.
And this was also one of the biggest stinkers of the year, getting a just about average rating from critics, and getting pretty bad word of mouth. This was compounded by the fact that there was a huge dispute about revenue sharing between the multiplex owners and the film producers and it took some time to get this dispute resolved. This dispute also resulted in some reduction in the bookings for the movie; but the bigger problem was that most people did not really like the movie. The saving grace for the movie is that the CD / DVD of the movie is a good seller, which means that people like this movie when they can see it at home, but did not really want to see this movie at the hall.

Amazon	Flipkart

The movie saw a lot of interviews before the release, with a lot of coverage of Kareena Kapoor for the size zero she achieved, and the exercise regime she followed for getting there. And there were the sound-bites by Vishal-Shekhar about the music they had released, and how it would become a landmark event, just because of the different kind of music. Anyhow, all this hype fell flat, and let us get some idea of the story.
The movie is a bit of a madcap, chase, deceit, love, and a lot of courage. In addition, the romance is shown in the end between Kareena and Akshay rather than between Kareena and Saif. So, you have Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) as a person teaching English at a call center. Into his life comes Pooja (Kareena), wanting him to teach English; he assumes that he will be teaching her and agrees. However, it is actually her boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor) who wants to learn English. Pretty quickly, Pooja is able to get Jimmy on her side, convincing him that she owns money to Bhaiyyaji and wants to go to her father's funeral at Haridwar. So, Jimmy agrees to help her steal money from Bhaiyyaji, and they run away. He does not know too much about Bhaiyyaji, and when he learns that Bhaiyyaji is a mafia don and known for his cruelty, he wants to warn Pooja but she has already run away with all the money.
Bhaiyyaji sends Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) to go after Jimmy; and when Bachchan catches Jimmy, they head off towards Haridwar to get Pooja. However, she sees them and runs away, and in a fight between Jimmy and Bachchan, the car has an accident, and falls into the water, the same water from which Pooja emerges in a scene meant for the front-benchers. Some episodes later, Pooja realizes that Bachchan is actually her childhood love, and that long lost love is reactivated. However, Jimmy has changed the money with stones, the same stones that Bachchan is now taking towards Bhaiyyaji. And then follows a fight at Bhaiyyaji's place, where they are surrounded by a lot of henchmen, but then they defeat everybody and Bhaiyyaji gets killed.

Ra.One (released in 2011) - Starring Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor - Wait for it to come on TV

For a couple of years now, Ra.One has been the most awaited movie in Bollywood. With the additional marketing blitz over the past few weeks, it would seem that you wherever you went, you would see something related to Ra.One; and with the product marketing tie-ups, there were many products that were related to Ra.One. The hype for the movie was incredible, and there is a sense of fear that comes when a movie is such incredibly hyped (which has been proved true for many movies in the past, the last one being Veer). I read a few reviews, asked some friends, and finally decided to take the plunge and buy a ticket (in a small group).
It's somewhat hard for me to describe how I felt, although one of my biggest indicators (looking at my watch often), indicated that the movie was not gripping enough. And, in the last couple of days, I watched some movies that were also some sort of super-hero movies, such as Robot, and Iron Man (1 and 2), it seemed to be clear that Ra.One was missing something. Which is very surprising if you look at the people and effort involved. With the backing of Shahrukh Khan, the movie was directed by Anubhav Sinha, music by Vishal-Shekhar, and with the huge budget of Rs. 175 crore letting the movie hire the best of talent from Holly wood. And yet, here are some of the negatives that really turned me off:
- The level of humour in the movie was incredibly low. What little humour there was dealt with poking fun of a Tamil accent, or of translating abuses into ones that ladies that can use, etc. I was cringing in the hall when I heard the language, and the common usage of words such as condom, main male organ, and so on.
- The film has very little action. For a movie that is styled on a super-hero, the action scenes would not be more than 15-20 minutes (or seems like that long)
- The movie has a feel of being in a video game; especially towards the end where the battle between the main characters does not really impress. Compare with the scene in Robot, and they seem better, and of course, there is no comparison between scenes in movies such as Iron Man.
- The movie displays the main Indian theme especially in the second half, where a song suddenly comes in and disrupts the entire sequence.
- The villain, supposedly endowed with superb powers, never really exhibits such powers other than the ability to deliver a strong blow (such as the one by the fireman in X-men, where energy is controlled and then thrown); further, this is a villain with only one objective, to kill the boy who last defeated him. There is no danger to the human race.
- Music is just about okay.
- Arjun Ramphal again has very little time in the film, with the cartoon character, and other guises taking up most of the appearance of the villain
- Who creates a video game with only 3 levels, and that too with only 1 gun and bullet in the 3rd stage (nobody would get hooked to such a game)

There were a few things I liked:
- Kareena did not have an action role, but otherwise she looked hot in her role
- The new kid (Armaan Khan) playing the role of the son of Shahrukh Khan was good
- Some of the interaction with the neighbor (Satish Shah) was decent
- The final train scene was good, and seemed well suited to the context of the locals in Mumbai

The story of the movie is basically the attempts of the super-hero to save the son of his creator, from another monster. So, Shahrukh works in a senior position in Barron industries, and creates video games. He is shown to be a bumbling guy, good with values and morals, and a good creator of video games. His son does not really idolise, and in fact, many times is embarrassed by the actions of his father. He is however in love with video games, and with villains. So, his father creates a new video game with the most dangerous villain, called Ra.One (the creation process of the video game shown in the movie is fairly nice), but his team soon starts to see weird things. The Artificial Intelligence given to the villain is giving the villain (inside the video game) some strange powers, and this comes out in the open when the young child Prateik (code name Lucifer) defeats Ra.One in the first level, but then abandons the game. At this, Ra.One decides to leave the game to defeat Lucifer in real life, and kills his father while doing this.
The only savior is G.One (played by Shahrukh Khan), the counterpart of Ra.One. Both of them have a brief battle where Ra.One is destroyed into several small parts, and they all flee back to India. After some sentimental scenes (sure to be a turn off for kids), Ra.One is re-created, comes to Mumbai and interrupts during the Chamak Challo sequence. A final fight sequence takes place, the movie ends. Yawn.

Bodyguard (released in 2011) - Starring Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor - A watchable movie

After the success of his previous movies such as Wanted, Ready, and Dabangg, Salman Khan is again a superstar of Indian cinema, capable of attracting huge crowds for his movies. So, when a movie of the name of Bodyguard comes, you would expect such a movie to have all the formula in place, such as lots of action, some good music, and some amount of romance and humour thrown in. To add to this, some of his recent movies have either been made by directors from South India, or is a remake of a South Indian film. The same situation is there in Bodyguard, where the movie is the third remake of a Malayam movie made by the same director, Siddique.
So, what is the judgment for the movie ? Well, the music is nothing to talk about, although the influence of South Indian cinema seems to be clearly apparent; even a Punjabi bases song sung by Mika did not really cause any excitement in the hall (as opposed to the whistling in the hall when Salman Khan made his entry). Even critics of the movie do not call the movie as anything to write about, although there is a lot of praise for the action done by Salman Khan (who is the total focus of attention in the movie).

Music CD of movie Bodyguard:

What about the movie ? Well, if you read on, then you will get to know the story of the movie after the first para, so be sure that you don't want to spoil your curiosity for the movie. In the hall, I found that 30 minutes into the movie, everybody became quiet, not because of any great suspense - it seemed that people felt that the movie started dragging on, and I started yawning (one of my best indicators that the movie started getting boring).
The movie has 3 very well directed action scenes (if you want some of the action scenes in Wanted, where the action suddenly seems to either become in slow motion or fast movement, then you know what to expect; in one scene, you can suddenly see even water droplets flying in the air). However, there are huge gaps in the movie where there are no action scenes, and since there are no easy apparently romantic scenes between Salman and Kareena, and the humour is not rib-ticking, it gets boring.
So, you have a big local man called Sartaj Singh (implied that he is a powerful man, but not whether he is the local bahubali or a respected man); he is also the local person to whom people in distress go to. So, a lady goes to Sartaj Singh and wants his help in saving her daughter and other local girls who are being sent to Thailand to be sold in the flesh trade. And when Sartaj Singh goes to a firm for help, they in turn direct the work to agent Lovely Singh (Salman Singh). Lovely is also very faithful to Sartaj since Sartaj had saved Salman's wife when Salman's parents suffered a tragic accident.
Next, Sartaj Singh wants Lovely to be the bodyguard for his daughter Divya (Kareena) who has to go to college, but is in danger because of the rivals of Sartaj. So, Salman goes off to college along with Divya (along with another friend, and 2 more people to help in their setting up of the house near the college). Divya cannot stand the constant presence of a bodyguard and seeks to change stuff such as the constant uniform that Lovely wears, and his being present everywhere. Towards this end, she seeks to entice him by calling him from her cell (the number of which does not get reported), and over a period of time, Lovely, even without meeting the girl, starts falling in love with her (something surprising).
Then the villains attack, which Lovely fends off, after which Divya falls in love with him. This can become unpleasant, since Salman treats her like his employer, and the daughter of a person whom he really respects; and this becomes crazy in the end when Divya is not able to let Lovely go, when the villains attack, and Divya's father is told that Lovely and Divya are planning to run away. However, in the end, Lovely saves Divya from villains, Divya saves Lovely from her father, and Salman goes away. And then, in the last 10 minutes, 8 years in the future, there is a twist.

Kambakkht Ishq (released in 2009) - starring Akshay Kumar, and Kareena Kapoor - A loud movie that I did not really like

The movie was an above average release for 2009. In addition, it was also the first movie in Hindi Cinemas, that features cameo roles from such international stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Denise Richards, Brandon Routh and Holly Valance. The movie is shot abroad, and is also set in Los Angeles. With a hot set of lead stars, international celebrities, and expected good music, the movie was hotly awaited. The collections for the first weekend were good enough to declare the movie a hit. However, when the movie was finally released, it was a disappointment and was savaged by many critics. The movie was a loud movie, I did not find the humour in good taste, and the songs were just about okay. The only thing that seemed fine was the cameo role of Sylvester Stallone. The rest, including the supposed hot role of Denise Richards seemed to leave me cold; and of course when you are showing a movie with a stuntman, you expect a lot more action scenes, and those were almost totally missing.

The movie is based on a strange battle of the sexes, that can be very sexist and not make a lot of sense. Akshay and Kareena meet at the marriage of his brother and her friend, and clash with each other, and even later when they meet by accident in Italy. He is a famous stuntman, and she is a medical student who models to earn money for her medical school tuition. Things come to a head when he lands up on her surgical table, the final step in her evaluation. And since this is a Hindi movie, by mistake she leaves a small watch inside him, with the watch loudly making a sound of "Om Mangalam" every hour; when she finds out, she is horrified, since this could mean that she will have a malpractice case on her and can say goodbye to her hopes of becoming a doctor. As a result, she has to find him, and operate on him before he can find out what the exact problem is; and for this, even if she has to sexually attract him, she will do so.
The rest of the story is of the attempt, and in between, he starts to love her. She takes longer to accept this, and the end is happy. In the meantime the story of the love, divorce case, and love again of the other couple in the story, Aftab Shivdesani, and Amrita Arora keeps on happening.

3 Idiots (released in 2009) - A superhit movie about a different kind of guy, starring Aamir Khan

3 Idiots was an incredibly successful movie, released with some hype, but which also turned out as a movie that was seemingly very different from the normal romance movies. The movie takes the story of an incredible student, who refused to be crushed by the normal pressure of college even when other students are buckling under the tremendous pressure, with even suicide seeming like an option for some of them. Further, handling the expectations of family is also a huge problem, especially when the family does not have resources of its own, and it is expected that the person be able to take a job that pays well (even when this can be a compromise with a career that a person would really like to do).
The movie was directed by Rajkumar Hirani (who had directed the Munnabhai series of movies earlier) and was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The screenplay was by Abhijat Joshi, and Rajkumar Hirani, with a huge dollop of controversy over the book being based on Chetan Bhagat's "5 Point Someone". The movie starred Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Omi Vaidya, Mona Singh, Parikshit Sahni, and Javed Jaffrey. The music for the film was by Shantanu Moitra, and the movie won a series of awards at all the different awards that there were for 2010 (Star Screen Awards, Filmware Awards, Stardust Awards, and the IIFA awards).

The movie gets its strength from the challenge between the engineering college principal and the student who is a rebel, who thinks about things and refuses to accept things just by rote; and the student is so convinced about his beliefs that he can take on the principal and teachers where required.
There are 3 students who enter the famous Imperial College of Engineering in Delhi (run by the principal Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (ViruS) (Boman Irani). The 3 students are: Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan), Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi), and Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad "Rancho" (Aamir Khan), all from different backgounds, and with different aspirations. These 3 are to share a room. Rancho turns out to be a student very different from what Virus likes, since he keeps on asking questions. When another student, Joy Lobo, commits suicide due to the pressure, Rancho almost accused Virus of being responsible for this suicide.
Virus wants to break the associations of Rancho, and tries to convince Farhan and Raju to break free from Rancho since this would affect their career. On the other hand, the favorite student is Chatur, who does not ask inconvenient questions, and answers all the queries in class. Rancho causes huge problems to Chatur when he changes the words of a speech that Chatur has to make in front of all the students. Rancho also comes into contact with the daughter of Virus, Pia (Kareena Kapoor), when they break into a marriage, and it is that of the elder daughter of Virus.
The movie continues in this run, where Rancho surprised everybody by coming in first, whole Raju and Farhan are at the bottom of the class consistently. Things escalate in a drunken situation, when they urinate at the door of Virus, and Raju is forced to make a choice; and he decides to jump from the 3rd floor. What happens next ? Do they manage to graduate ? What happens between Virus and Rancho ? Watch this incredible movie.

3 Idiots Chatur Ramalingam's Funny Speech