Anamika (released in 2008) - Starring Dino Morea, Minissha Lamba, Koena Mitra and Gulshan Grover

Rebecca is an incredible novel and an incredible movie. So, when you start making a movie that seeks to draw inspiration from (or rather take the entire concept from). And when start comparing this movie to the original 1940 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, there are very few movies that will come up to the standard; and to tell the truth, Anamika is not even a superb Hindi movie, so any comparison with Rebecca will be far from fair. However, reading the book Rebecca or seeing the movie Rebecca can prove interesting, because it provides an important context to this movie. The movie is made by Anant Mahadevan who has directed a number of movies in the past, but this once cannot be said to be his best movie. The movie slips a bit, but is still watchable to some extent. Need to give some marks for trying, although it might have been better if he had taken some better actors - this after all is a movie that can provide some great acting parts (one after can pretend that it is the next Rebecca). Music directed by Anu Malik, but really no great shakes.




So what's the movie about ? There is this rich guy from a Gajner Palace in Rajasthan, who is a rich and successful industrialist. He comes to Bombay for a convention, with plans for doing what so many other people in Rajasthan have done - convert his palace into a posh heritage resort. However, being a young man, he hires from an escort service, and gets Jia Rao (played by Minissha Lamba), who does not exactly do great service to the work of an escort. He teaches her how to be an escort, and also falls in love with her (shades of Pretty Woman, maybe). They marry, and she comes back to his palace in Rajasthan. And that is where the inspiration from Rebecca happens.
The caretaker is this lady Koena Mitra, and how along with other members of the staff, keep on referring to the first wife of the industrialist, to the point that it starts to bother Jia. Jia decides to convert herself into the proper wife, and becomes more and more like the first wife, but this also bothers her husband who did not want his second wife to become like the first wife. And then, Vikram (played by Dino Morea), the rich industrialist, is accused of the murder of his first wife, things get more complicated. And then the body of his first wife gets found in the desert. What does all this lead to ? Is Jia herself in danger ? Watch the movie.

Shaurya (released in 2008) - Starring Rahul Bose, Kay Kay Menon, Javed Jaffrey and Minissha Lamba

When you make a film on such a sensitive target, you cannot make a very simplistic movie, it has to be deep enough to present the different perspectives of the situation. And when you are trying to copy an iconic movie, then all the more so, since it is quite plausible that your audience would have seen the original movie and will end up comparing the original movie with this one, and it better be good, or the comparison will fail.
Now consider a situation where a defense lawyer, in an army setting is apathetic, not really caring about the cases of the client. However, he is asked to defend an army officer who is being prosecuted for killing his own superior officer, that too in the conflict zone of Kashmir, and he is on trial for his life. The evidence is against him, and there is a senior officer who is pushing the prosecution case. Does all this sound familiar ? Well, even though the exact situation may not be similar, no one who has seen the Tom Cruise movie, 'A Few Good Men', can fail to make the association. Even more so, since the movie was not an action thriller or something like that, it had some commanding performances, especially from Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, and trying to catch upto those performances can be a tough act, even for actors such as Rahul Bose and Kay Kay Menon. I would like to say that I found the movie great, but the English movie was in my mind, and Shaurya cannot catch up to that movie, especially because I found the script and direction to be one of the weaker aspects.




So what is the story ? In Kashmir, the young officer, that too a Muslim officer, Javed Khan had shot his superior officer, Major Rathod during the course of a search operation in a village. Now, he is on trial, and to stand as his lawyer is the cynical Major Siddhant Chaudhary (played by Rahul Bose). He is opposed by his friend, Major Akash Kapoor (played by Javed Jaffery) who is the prosecution lawyer. And a superior officer is in the shadows, Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh.
Do I need to say more ? Rahul Bose gets more involved in the case, trying to decipher the motives of the young Javed Khan, who does not want to reveal any details of what had happened. And there is the journalist played by Minissha Lamba who reveals more of the truth to Rahul Bose and forces him to start thinking more about what Shaurya means, and how is this related to the actions of the Briagdier, the dead major and the non-speaking Army office on trial for murder. Where is the honor of the army and its officers also figuring in all this.
At the same time, it is still one of the better experiments in Indian cinema, and if you fed of nonsensical movies that become super-hits, then get hold of this movie and watch it. I hardly ever see any re-runs of the movie on TV though.

Hindi Movie - Bachna Ae Haseeno (released in 2008) - Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and Bipasha Basu

When you get a movie that has some of the most charismatic, sexy and young faces of Bollywood, you would expect a very interesting movie. I would not call 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' an incredible movie, but it was a very interesting movie with a subject that was different. For the likes of Ranbeer Kapoor, doing a role that also subjected to him being humiliated on screen, having to follow the dictates of somebody whom he had ditched, gives him a reputation for looking out for interesting roles. Further movies he has done after that include such movies as Rockstar, Rocket Singh and Barfi. The music for the film was given by Vishal-Shekhar, and the song 'Khuda Jaane', sung by KK, became very popular.
The movies stars such young stars as Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Minissha Lamba, and also an experienced and sexy star such as Bipasha Basu. The movie, produced by Aditya Chopra, was directed by Siddharth Anand, an experienced director (who had some successes such as Salaam Namaste (2005) and also a failure in the form of Ta Ra Rum Pum (released in 2007)). The selection of the leading ladies for the film took a fair amount of time, with some of the actresses being considered including Preity Zinta, Katrina Kaif, Amrita Rao. However, even though the story included 3 actresses, the story weaved in and out, and there were almost no scenes where the actresses were in the same scenes, keeping the spotlight firmly on Ranbeer Kapoor, since he was there in all the scenes.




(If you don't want to read the story of the movie, don't read any further)
The story in a nutshell is the story of a young man, who goes from one love affair to another, but who decides on his own when to stay and when to leave the affair, irrespective of the feeling of the girl he is with, and what this does to the girl when she finds out.
Raj Sharma (Ranbeer) first meets Mahi (Lamba) who is out on a trip on a train in Europe. She is like the typical romantic, somebody who believes in true love and who will sweep her off her feet. She misses her train, and who does she but Raj, apparently missing the train because she had missed her train. He offers to help her catch up by getting her to the airport, and even writes a poem for her. As expected, she falls for him, but he was just doing time pass, and then hears him boasting to his friends about what they did, and is shocked, and he sees her when gets shocked.
Next episode, he is working with Microsoft and has a modern neighbor in the form of Radhika, an upcoming model. Soon they fall for each other and start having a live-in relationship. But when he gets an offer to move to Sydney, he expects that he can easily break the relationship and she will not have a problem, being a modern girl. However, she has love and marriage on her mind, and she finally ends up being ditched at the registrar's office. 2 girls ditched so far, and both of them carry deep wounds because of this.
And then the reverse. He meets a girl called Gayatri (played by Deepika) who is truly an independent women. She drives taxis, she studies and so on, but when he falls for her and proposes, she has no interest and refuses. This finally causes him to realize what he did to the earlier 2 women in his life, and taking this further, decides to go back to Mahi and Radhika and apologize for what he has done to them.
What happens next ? Do these girls decide to forgive him for what he had done ? What about Gayatri ? See it on TV or get the DVD.