Sirf (Released in 2008) - Life in Mumbai for 4 couples

When somebody tells you about a story with different couples, detailing their different situations, you know the following. The story will tell you about their challenges, about the complexity of their life, about how they all don't know each other but will come together (or rather, their life will be intertwined near the close (or in the second half) of the film), and they will all be in the same city. And all that is true of this movie.
However, a story such as this needs to be gripping, and it has to be logical. For getting its viewers to get hooked to the story, the person depicted in the movie may not be in the same social class, but the challenges that they face should be something that the person seeing the movie can understand and make sense of. These challenges can be related to money, love or affairs - these are the most common areas that make up the stories of our day-to-day movies.
So, here we have the story of 4 couples, all of them having their own challenges. And some of the people taken for depicting the various roles are great actors, and yet, you come out of the movie not satisfied. The story and editing needs to keep the challenges and the grip right through the duration of the movie, and here, after some initial effort, you feel that the Director, Rajaatsh Nayar, loses grip over the direction through the movie, and it gets difficult to stay the 2 hours of this movie.
Here are the cast of main characters in the movies, their relationships and the challenges facing them.




The rich couple: Gaurav (Kay Kay Menon) and Devika (Manisha Koirala). They are the rich couple, but you know the depiction of rich couples. When people are shown as rich, they are most of the time shown to have a deficit of love in their relationship, and the movie sticks to the same approach. And of course, they tend to be busy (or rather, the man is shown to be busy and not have time for his wife).
Needing money: Rahul (Ankur Khanna) and Shalu (Nauheed Cyrusi). Very much in love with each other, but her parents have set a condition that even though they are fine with the marriage, he has to find a house in 3 months on rent, else she will get married to somebody else. Seems a bit strange.
Love and trust: Amit (Parvin Dabbas) and Suchita (Rituparan Sengupta). They have a good life, not wanting for money, but then she starts suspecting that he is having an affair ? Is this true ?
Love and understanding: Akash (Ranvir Shorey) and Namita (Sonali Kulkarni). This one is difficult, but when you consider a number of divorce cases where there is no real reason, except that people have grown apart and hence do not want to remain married, it might make more sense. But did the movie bring that out ? They have their own offices, do love each other but are they able to understand their respective limitations ? Do they have that understanding ?
The music of the movie was no great shakes, with the music being by Sohail Sen and Shibani Kashyap. Lyrics are by Mehboob and Vipul Saini.

Mere Baap Pehle Aap (Released in 2008) - Trying to get Dad married - Can be missed, even though from Priyadarshan

It was a good cast, starring Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Genelia D'Souza and Shobhana, out of whom almost all are known for good performances. And Priyadarshan has made some good comedies in the past, so it was a bit surprising that one good into such a non-interesting movie. The concept can be pretty good, with a great father-son partnership, the father trying to get his son married to the beautiful girl, while the son is trying to get the father married off to the mother of the girl, who is also coincidentally his old girlfriend. Can be interesting, right ? Well, not quite. Modern comedies try to put a lot of different incidents into a movie, hoping that the series of gags or incidents eventually ensure that the audience likes the movie and feel satisfied.
Now to the reality of the movie - this movie attempts to get a bit serious, or so the story tries to do in between. And in between, there are some sort of gags - but imagine wasting such stars such as Om Puri (portrayed as a comic skirt-chaser - why did he take such a role?), Sobhana (restricted to wearing good sarees and sniffing or making faces), or even Paresh Rawal (who has played comic roles in a great way in movies such as Hungama, but who does not get any comic roles in this movie); you get the idea. Maybe the idea was to change their personas in the movie, different from how they are regularly portrayed; would have been appreciated if the movie had worked, but it did not. It did not earn much at the box office either. The movie has music by Vidyasagar and Tauseef Akhtar.




So what is the story about (spoiler alert) ? Well, there is this widower Janaradhan Wishvanbhar Rane (played by Paresh Rawal), he has 2 sons Chirag (Manoj Joshi) and Gaurav (played by Akshaye Khanna). Janardhan has played a good father to his sons, bringing them up in a good manner; and over a period of time, his son Gaurav has gone to become very protective of his father; to the effect that it seems that Gaurav is the father, not his father. He is extra protective because of the presence of his father's dear friend, Madhav Mathur (played by Om Puri). Madhav, in the search for a bride who is not yet over-the-hill, gets into regular escapades and Gaurav has to get them out of trouble.
Gaurav now gets in touch with a lady, an old college friend Sheekha Kapoor (played by Genelia D'Souza), who in turn is staying with her guardian Anuradha (played by Shobhana). When Gaurav and Sheekha see Janardhan and Anuradha meeting, it seems strained, and they find out that both were in an old relationship; with this, Gaurav changes his mind and decides that his father should get married to this old companion; it also seems to his father that Sheekha is an ideal bride for his son; and so it gets confused. Who gets married to whom ?

Aamir (Released in 2008) - Starring Rajeev Khandelwal - A serious movie about a terror attack

Once in a while a movie comes along that is gripping. You have these romantic comedies that are released in thousands of theaters and go on to make hundreds of crores in revenue, but those movies leave you unsatisfied. And then you get a movie, made low budget, with unknown characters, that leaves you thinking, that grips you during the movie and you start thinking for the character in terms of what will happen next. Aamir is one such movie, a movie about terrorism, but an angle that is different from other movies. It is a simple story, but does not pull any punches, and makes you think about the tragedy that happens to the hero of the movie. Rajeev Khandelwal was not unknown before the movie, since he had made a name for himself in TV serials, but a movie is a different ball-game all together.
The movie started out slowly, since there were no major stars, but when a movie is good and is also praised by critics, it starts getting good word of mouth, and that ensured that the movie went on to earn a good profit and created a good name for Rajeev. The movie was directed by Raj Kumar Gupta (who later went on to direct the hit and serious, No One Killed Jessica). Music for the film was given by Amit Trivedi, lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya and the movie was produced by UTV.




A man is returning from Britain, back to his family, and suddenly, his life is turned upside down, thrown into a mix that will eventually take his life. Dr. Aamir Ali (played by Rajeev Khandelwal) is returning back to Mumbai, when he is given a cellphone by a stranger and told to wait for further instructions. The video in the phone scares him, since it is clear that his family has been abducted, and he has to now wait for further instructions. Further instructions make it clear to him that he has been caught in the trap of an Islamic terrorist who urges him to do something for his religion rather than the work that he is currently doing, and plays upon his name (Aamir means a leader).
From then on, it is a frantic series of movements, a lot of them over a red suitcase that has been given to him, and which gets stolen from him in between. It is full of cash, but when he finally gets to sit in a bus and is told to leave the suitcase under his seat and move out, he realizes that the suitcase contains a bomb, and the intention was to use Aamir to cause mayhem in a bus through the bomb. He finally makes a choice, deciding to ensure that no one else gets caught up in the bomb blast, clearing an area, and dying in the bomb blast - and all his tension, his sacrifice, is unknown to people around him, since he is suspected of being the bomber who died in the blast.

Woodstock Villa (Released in 2008) - Suspense film, but can be missed

Suspense films have several criteria that they need to meet. They should have great performances, they should be taut and with a quickly moving story, the scenes in the movie should make sense (even though the story and occurrences in a suspense movie will be out of the ordinary), the music and background score should make sense, and at the end, the viewer should feel that the story progression made sense. If a movie fails at several of these points, then it is difficult to praise a movie, but at the same time, the performance by the lead actor (played by Sikander Kher) is creditable and one of the few plus points of this movie. The movie stars Arbaaz Khan, Neha Oberoi, and a few other stars such as Gulshan Grover, Shakti Kapoor, Sachin Khedekar, etc. The movie had music by Anu Malik, and Virag Mishra.
The movie is made by the White Feather Films and is directed by Hansal Mehta, but suffers from problems such as a loud score, and the biggest problem being the story that does not seem to make sense through the movie, especially post the interval (and the interval is interesting, given that the movie is only 90 minutes long). This is the undoing of the movie, especially the fact that viewers do not appreciate the movie - and the reviews by critics at the time of the release of the movie were pretty harsh.



So what is the story of the movie all about ? Well, you have this down on luck guy, Sam (played by Sikander Kher), who is without a job (you don't far if you sleep with the wife of your boss), who owes rent on his flat and also owes money to a bad guy (Gulshan Grover); he needs a lot of money. And what does he find ? He meets this lady Zara (played by Neha Uberoi) in a disco, who tells him that she wants to test her husband's love for her, this husband being Jatin (played by Arbaaz Khan). So she tells Sam to kidnap her and demand a huge ransom. Now, since he so much needs money, Sam decides to go ahead, and that is where things start to go wrong.
He goes with her to a place called Woodstock Villa, and when he is out, Zara gets killed in the meantime; something that Sam comes back and sees, and is panic stricken. He gets a phone call that he has 30 minutes to clean up the mess, and so he buries the body in the forest and cleans up. It is later that he sees Zara in a video and comes back to the city to know the truth. He finds Zara and gets the truth from her, and the truth is very different from what he had experienced so far. There was a Zara and there was a Jatin, but the body he had buried, and the girl he was in touch with, one of them was Zara and the other was somebody forced to step into the role. How does he resolve this ? There is suspense, but some of the parts of the story are not so readily believable; and that loud score in the movie ? It needs to be done well to work well, but really does not.

U Me Aur Hum (released in 2008) - A tearjerker starring Ajay Devgn, Kajol, Divya Dutta, Isha Shervani, and others

U Me Aur Hum is a romantic movie, although one with a difference. The movie takes a look at what love means, and how does love deal with a case where a person loses their memory, cannot even remember basic details, and what that does to the person who is living with them. The movie was the first movie made by Ajay Devgn as a director, and was also the last one. The movie did okay the box office, but gained more through word of mouth where people liked the story. Critics however had a mixed tale; they liked the story, they liked the performances, but found the direction and the progress of the movie somewhat weak, with the movie getting slow in certain parts. The music for the film won some praise, but nothing outstanding, with music by Vishal Bharadwaj, and lyrics by Munna Dhiman. Some of the other actors in the movie besides Ajay Devgun and Kajol were Karan Khanna, Isha Shervani, Sumeet Raghavan, and Divya Dutta.
The story of the movie is being done as a flashback, where a middle aged Ajay Devgn is on a cruise ship. His son is with him and likes another lady. Ajay pushes him to go talk to her, and his son asks him to first go and find an old lady to charm, and as a result, Ajay goes to an old lady and starts telling his story, with this story drawing in more crowds all around them. The story is from 25 years back, from a cruise again, where Ajay is enjoying a cruise with his friends. One of the couples with him are having some tension in their marriage.




At the bar, Ajay meets Kajol and falls for her. In the morning, when they meet, out of his booze, Ajay tells her that he still loves her. She does not tell him yes, so he pursues her by trying to find what she likes. He even manages to read her diary and from this learns that she wanted to dance. So he learns enough that he can give her training in dancing, and this makes the position better. However, she finds out that he had seen her diary and is upset. However, he still believes that things will work out the way he wanted.
He calls his friends over, and they learn to their surprise that she accepted his efforts and they finally got married. But their romantic life suddenly starts getting into problems - she starts forgetting things. When such incidents happen, they consult and find out that she has a disease, Alzheimer's, and her current pregnancy will cause more problems. He manages to handle the situation, but after the baby is born, he has to worry that if she forgets who the baby is, this can cause harm to the baby. He decides that it is best if she is put in a place that handles people with such problems, although this decision hurts him a lot.
But, then does he get her back ? Watch the movie to find out.

One Two Three (released in 2008) - A comedy movie starring Tushar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty, Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy, and others

When you make such a movie, you are doing an experiment hoping that enough people will like the jokes and make the movie earn more than the cost. So, one way of helping this process along is by having a host of characters in the movie (and with none of them being the mega stars who charge a whole host of money and decrease the chance of your movie becoming a hit); then you add in some jokes of all varieties (including jokes that are more adult - and this seems to work, with the very adult jokes full movie, Grand Masti, becoming a big hit this year, 2013). There are a number of movies that have come in with the concept of people getting mistaken for each other, and the resulting comedy capers. Add in the concept of all of them being in a confined space such as a hotel, and things get even more chaotic (for an example of how action inside a hotel can be converted into a massive comic scene - just watch the movie, De Dana Dan which had most of the sequence inside a hotel with chases and what-not inside the hotel itself).
One Two Three takes 3 different people - played by Tusshar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty all in a hotel, all coming from very different backgrounds and with different personalities. So what brings them all together ? All of them have come to the same city, staying in the same hotel, and with the same name, Laxminarayan. And you can guess the rest of the confusion that erupts when they are all in the same hotel, especially when you have Dons also involved, and when one of them sells undergarments, you can understand where the adult humor comes in. Some of the other cast include Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy, Upen Patel, Neetu Chandra and Tanisha. A whole host of characters, but none of them are of the mega-star kind who would charge an arm and a leg, and who would throw a tantrum if you did not revolve the movie around them.




Tusshar is the poor guy from Mumbai, living with his widowed mother, with the ambition being to become more of a successful gangster, kill some people, make a name and then marry the daughter of another don. So, he comes to Pondicherry to kill another Don, on whom he has got a contract.
Suniel Shetty is a secretary, come to the city to buy a vintage car from a dealer (and who would not want to buy a car from a dealer such as Sameera Reddy).
Paresh Rawal is a dealer in undergarments, who has come to Pondicherry to meet up with a new supplier (Esha Deol). Both of these ladies have their own struggles, with both of them being under debt and desperate to strike the deals for which Suniel and Paresh have come to the city. And then Upen Patel and Tanisha are there in the auto showroom, but actually are doing diamonds, hiding in the car which Sameera is trying to sell. And of course, the police is also hunting for these diamonds. A sleeper movie (since not too many people remember the movie), but it made money and even though it is easy to dismiss as another of those crank comic capers, it did reasonably well.

Sunday (released in 2008) - Starring Ajay Devgn, Ayesha Takia, Arshad Warsi and Irfan Khan

Rohit Shetty is now counted as one of the most successful Directors, with the tag of the most money making movie in Bollywood in his pocket (through the release of Chennai Express - the quality of the movie is not up for discussion in this post). He has been making movies which are over the top, with cars flying all over the place; when a person is hit, he can go flying for long distanes, almost to the extent of behaving like you would expect in a cartoonish movie. However, this film somehow did not carry the Rohit Shetty traditional feel, and did not so well at the box movie (which may be why Rohit Shetty has been making all his movies post Sunday as over the top, and most of them have been known only as entertainers, but painful for critics to review). The movie starred his traditional stars - Ajay Devgn and Arshad Warsi, and also starred Ayesha Takia and Irfan Khan. Music was by a whole host of music directions, with almost every song having a separate music director, but the songs were not particularly impressive - which is the story of the movie (nothing was really that impressive). The movie is actually a remake of a 2005 Telugu film.
So what is the story all about ? It seems like you have heard of this one before. A girl has a strange disease, whereby she can forget entirely what she been doing, even for as large a time as a full day. And somebody is murdered, and the girl cannot even remember what happened. In fact, initially she does not even realize that she is missing a whole Sunday from her life. This girl is Sehar (played by Ayesha Takia). She stays with another girl called Ritu, and one day, almost forcefully, Ritu takes Sehar out to a local club - because Sehar tends to forget where she has been, she prefers not to socialize like this.




Her mother wants Sehar to link up with a policeman, ACP Rajveer Randhawa (played by Ajay Devgn), who is a typical cop in the sense that he can be corrupt when he wants to be. His mother and Sehar's mother know each other and want both of them to get married, but Sehar has rejected the idea since she got to know about the corrupt ways of Rajveer. After the club, Sehar wakes up in her flat, but soon realizes that something is wrong - that she is missing something. She meets a couple of strange characters - one is a taxi driver and one is a struggling actor. After some discussion with Rajveer, they come to the conclusion that she given something in the club because of which she totally went out and forgot what happened on Sunday.
Slowly, Rajveer finds out that Sehar is related in some way to a murder of another girl that happened, and that the taxi driver had left Sehar near where the girl was murdered, and surprisingly the corrupt cop did a quick investigation and finally caught the guy who had murdered his own cheating girl-friend and then later killed the one with whom she was having an affair. Because Sehar was nearby, he thought that she had witnessed the murder, and was after her for that reason. Finally Rajveer manages to solve everything.

Bombay To Bangkok (released in 2008) - Starring Shreyas Talpade and Lena Christensen, directed by Nagesh Kukunoor

Sometimes you can have a set of excellent people involved in the making of a movie, and yet the movie can be one that is best avoided. This is a movie that appeals to some people, but critics who review movie on a professional basis would not be part of that set. The movie was released in 2008 (January) and had 2 people in who can be counted to make good movies - one is the main actor (Shreyas Talpade) and the other is the producer and director of the movie, Nagesh Kukunoor. Now, Nagesh has made movies that have been pretty well acclaimed, starting with his debut movie, Hyderabad Blues and for other well acclaimed movies such as Iqbal. So for Nagesh to make such a movie, that tries to be different, but really does not make people laugh too much, a combination of a romance and thriller, with some music thrown in. The music, by Salim-Sulaiman, does not really catch people too much either.




The plot is a simple one. A small time cook, Shankar (played by Shreyas Talpade) needs money, but is not able to make this money. So he finally breaks his patience, and resorts to stealing. He steals a pouch of money, but who does he end up stealing from ? The biggest mafia don in Mumbai (with Naseeruddin Shah in a special appearance). When you steal money from a don, you are in deep shit, and the same is the case with Shankar. He manages to make his way to a medical group that is on their way to Bangkok (for some voluntary work).
Once he gets to Thailand, he comes into contact with a very pretty Thai prostitute, Jasmine (played by Lina Christianson), but is unable to do what he is paying her to do, so she returns the money. However, the next day she turns up at the medical camp where he is pretending to be a doctor; they are not able to talk much, but still have a connection and get closer. But, he has lost the money pouch, and the men from the don are after him. So what does he do ?
The plot is very thin, and none of the performances were very excellent, and the movie did not do any great shakes with the audience as well.

Kismat Konnection (2008) - Starring Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan and Juhi Chawla

Shahid Kapoor had the super-hit film with a pairing with Kareena Kapoor, and the movie ? Jab We Met. Unfortunately, his luck ran out then, and in fact Jab We Met was released when the pair was already done, with Kareena waltzing off with Saif Ali Khan, and Shahid looking for somebody on the rebound. During and after the course of this movie, there were a lot of stories about a relationship with Vidya Balan, but soon after this movie released, the talk went away. In fact, the movie had a strong opening and a great first weekend, but then went weak and was classified as a weak movie at the box office. The songs were okay, the chemistry was okay (although there were a number of comments about his boyish look while she looked like his aunty), and then of course, there was withering criticism of Vidya Balan's wardrobe, something that must have riled her a lot (she talked about this criticism for some time after the release of the movie).
The movie also had a role by Juhi Chawla, trying to play a non-glamorous role, and if the movie had been successful, maybe that role might have been more appreciated. However, it was not to be. The movie was released under the banner of Tips Industries, being produced by Ramesh Taurani, and was directed by the well admired director Aziz Mirza (who of course has a very strong Shahrukh Khan connection). The music was by Pritam, with lyrics by Sayeed Quadri & Shabbir Ahmed). The movie had story by Rahila Mirza.

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The story of how a particular person could be the key to another person's luck sounds like the story that a fortune teller might try to tell you, and so it was in this case. It is particular painful for a person who was at the top in college, and was predicted to do very well. Raj Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor) is an architect, and is still struggling for good work. In addition, he runs into trouble in the form of Priya (Vidya Balan) and they have a tiff (verbal tiff).
Soon after, Raj goes to a gypsy lady Haseena Bano Jaan (played by Juhi Chawla) for help and advice, and she tells him that there is a person whose very presence will bring him luck, and guess what, it will be Priya. If she were there when he was trying to do his business, it will lead to more clients, more business, and success.
Priya is more interested in doing social work, including standing up for the rights of citizens when businesses are trying to push them aside. She wants to prevent the building of a huge commercial project that will push aside a small community center, while for him, the big move is to propose himself as the architect of this huge commercial project. So he lies to her in terms of trying to help her project while putting forward his proposals for the project. And, her presence does seem to help his fortune. He also falls in love with her, but then, things get upturned when she finds out what he is actually trying to do.
However, by this time, he is for the project that she is trying to do, for her cause, and changes his plans to accommodate the community center, but is knocked out of the bidding process, even though she is attracted finally by what he is trying to do. And then help comes from a very unlikely source, such a help that you would start to believe in a concept of God. A movie that can be watched.

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.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (released in 2009) - A comedy starring Katrina Kaif against Ranbir Kapoor

Rajkumar Santoshi used to make serious movies in an earlier avatar, and made movies such as Ghayal and Damini, powerful movies. However, he also made some incredible comedies such as Andaz Apna Apna, and this movie, "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", was another in those line of comedies. The movie starred a couple that seemed a bit strange, namely two young superstars in the form of Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif. The movie was a wacky comedy, which turned out to be a huge hit, being the third biggest hit on 2009 (difficult to compete with a movie such as 3 Idiots).
The movie starred the following: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, and Upen Patel. The movie shows them as perfectly normal people, with Ranbir and Katrina both suffering from a stammer, which can make things difficult. It's Upen who is the super-rich, and who is also made to appear as a fool in the movie. The movie had some good music by Pritam Chakraborty, and was produced by Ramesh S Taurani. The movie did not show too many serious situations, and even the confrontations in the movie were handled in a light manner. The movie also won some favorable ratings from critics and got Ranbir a Filmfare award for Best Actor.

The movie showcased some great chemistry between the lead pair of Ranbeer and Katrina. The movie stars Ranbeer as Prem, a happy go lucky person, who is always ready to help others and who is the head of a Happy Club, one that tries to make others happy. He comes into contact with Katrina (Jenny) when he kidnaps her by mistake, and falls in love with her. However, he realizes that she is not for him, since she loves somebody else, the rich Upen Patel (Rahul), who is the son of a politician.
Even though his friends urge him otherwise, he decides to get them married to each other, with the complication being that Rahul's father does not want his son to get married to Katrina. And there is the funny mobster who wants to get money from Rahul's father and tries various schemes for the same. The rest of the movie is about resolving all this complication, and does Prem really get Jenny in the end ?

Veer Zaara (released in 2004) - A cross-border romance starring Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji

Veer Zaara is a movie from the Yash Chopra production house, produced by Aditya Chopra, and directed by Yash Chopra. The movie was released in 2004, and was set in a cross border situation between India and Pakistan, where the inherent hostility between the 2 nations provides a great situation to set a story of hostility and romance. The movie showcases the full power of love, where people are willing to take a 22 year delay for their loved ones. The movie was promoted with all the power that Yash Raj Films could use, and turned out to be a huge hit, in India, in Pakistan, and in the overseas market.
The movie also had the distinction where the music was by using tunes from the deceased famous Music Director, Madan Mohan, where unreleased tunes of the famous music director were used, with his son Sanjeev Kohli, leading this effort. The female lead of the songs was Lata Mangeshkar, adding to the poignancy of the overall effort, since she has sung for many movies in the past where Madan Mohan was the Music director. The movie received a large number of awards in the Filmfare awards, IIFA awards, Stardust Awards, Star Screen awards, Zee Cine Awards, and many others. It was almost like a clean sweep of the awards, with these covering Best Film, Actor, Actress, Best Director, etc.


The movie is about the romance between Veer Pratap Singh (Shahrukh Khan) and Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta), where Veer is a Squadron Leader with the Indian air force, and Zaara is a young Pakistani girl from a prominent family. She is already engaged to Raza (Manoj Bajpai). Zaara comes to Punjab in India for fulfilling the last wishes of her governess, who wanted her ashes to be scattered in the river Sutlej near the holy city of Kiratpur. However, when Zaara comes over, she is left in a precarious position due to a bus accident, and Veer saves her with his helicopter. He takes her one day to his village where she meets his parents, Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, in a small appearance. They are impressed with Zaara, but the couple separate when it is clear that they need to go on their own ways.
Zaara is now confused, since she has come to love Veer, but must marry Raza for the sake of pride and honour; Veer comes when told to by Zaara's maid, but when he comes to their home, her mother implores him to go away for the sake of their family. However, when he is going, Raza takes revenge by getting him arrested as a spy. And that is where things go totally wrong, since Veer is sent to jail, and Zaara believes that Veer had died in a bus accident.
22 years later, a young firebrand lawyer called Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukerji) is fighting for the rights of women in Pakistan, and also gets allotted the case of prisoner number 786, Veer, who has been convicted of being an Indian spy called Rajesh Rathod. Veer has not spoken to anyone, which makes the case all the more difficult.
What happens next ? How does she find out the truth, and do the lovers meet again after 22 years ?

List of songs from the movie: 1. Tere Liye 2. Main Yahan Hoon 3. Aisa Des Hain Mera 4. Yeh Hum Aa gaye hain kahan 5. Do Pal 6. Kyun Hawa 7. Hum To Bhai Jaise 8. Aaye Tere Dar Pe 9. Lodi 10. Tum Paas Aa Rahein Ho 11. Jaane Kyon

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

Love Aaj Kal - a different love story starring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone (released in 2009)

Love Aaj Kal was a love story released in 2009, produced by Saif Ali Khan as his first movie as a producer, and paid him rich dividends, becoming a fairly big hit. The movie starred essentially 4 people in 2 parallel love tracks (separated by a generation), Rishi Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and a Brazilian newcomer, Giselli Monteiro. The music of the movie was also well appreciated, with songs such as Twist, Chor Bazaari, Dooriyan, and Aaj Din Chadheya becoming big musical hits. The music for the movie was by Pritam (lyrics by Irshad Kamil). The movie was directed by Imtiaz Ali (who also had a previous big hit in the form of Jab We Met).
The movie was a story of breakup and meeting, set in a very modern generation, where people concentrate on their careers, and contrasts this with a storyline that was set a generation back, where the person would do a lot for love, and base their decisions and their actions on love (and in the end, the conclusion of the movie is that the power of love still makes people do things even when they feel that they are driving their own decisions).

The movie is the story of Jai and Meera, who are a modern couple in London, and parallel to this, the movie also tells the story of Veer Singh and Harleen (from the past). Jai and Meera (Saif and Deepika) are in London, where they meet and become a couple. However, they have career needs that they realize will take them in different directions, with Meera interested in conservation, taking her to India, and Jai being an architect, working for the Golden Gate firm in San Francisco. They decide that they cannot be together, and have a separation party, deciding to move on with their own life. They do however, decide to remain very much in contact, and with the power of modern communications, it could be that they remain very close to each other. When Meera is leaving, Jai comes in contact with Veer Singh, who is surprised that Jai is letting Meera go like this, and tells him the story of how he fought for Harleen (in a sepia tinged story), whom he liked but did not get a chance to speak to much.
Now, Jai and Meera are living their own lives, with Jai involved with a blonde in London, while Meera has received an offer from her boss, and finally decides to accept his romance. In between, Jai pays a visit to Meera and they have a lot of fun together, but things get serious when Vikram (Meera's boss) proposes to her; Meera is confused because she still has feelings for Jai, and she and Jai have an argument (with Meera telling Jai that they should stop being in touch with each other).
And then Meera marries Vikram, still confused. Jai comes there, and in a remarkable coincidence, he gets an offer from the Golden Gate. In the meantime, Meera realizes her marriage was a mistake, and tries to get in touch with Jai but realizes that he is incredibly happy over going to San Francisco and does not say anything more to him. He enjoys his stay in San Francisco, but over a period of time, this excitement starts falling and he starts to feel depressed. It takes a mugging for him to realize that he is actually missing Meera, and he rushes back to Delhi even though he knows that Meera is married. When he reaches here, he realizes that Meera and Vikram are no longer married, and he has an emotional reunion with Meera at her site.

Adalat (released in 1976) - A movie starring Amitabh Bachchan (in a dual role)

Amitabh Bachchan received a Filmfare nomination for his role in this film, which was a dual role. This was the only nomination received. The movie was not a very big hit, but was not a flop also. The movie also starred the following in the movie:
Amitabh's love interests - Waheeda Rehman and Neetu Singh
Others in the movie - Pinchoo Kapoor, Sujit Kumar and Kader Khan
The music for the movie was by Kalyanji Anandji and the movie was directed by Narendra Bedi.
The lyrics for the movie were by Gulshan Bawra. One of the most popular songs from the movie is called 'Behna O Behna'.
The movie was like a number of movies where Amitabh played the role of a person who is from a normal upbringing, but due to certain circumstances, Amitabh becomes a mafia man, who has turned to crime.

The movie is about revenge taken by a good man, who is pushed into a situation where he becomes a mafia man, a rich man and who is faced with the challenges of being involved with the mafia later.
The movie takes the story of a poor man from a village, Dharamchand / Dharma who lives with his family, primarily consisting of his wife Radha and his newborn son, Raju. Dharma's life takes a turn when he saves the lives of 3 people from the city, Ajit, Suresh, and Sujit, from a tiger and they promise to help him whenever he decides to visit Bombay. When Dharma goes through a bad time, he decides to move to Bombay and he is setup as a warehouse manager by Ajit.
However, soon he is involved with the police who arrest him (inspite of claiming his innocence), and sentenced to jail. When he comes out after a couple of years, he realizes that his life has totally changed, and for the worse. He avenges the rape/suicide of Laxmi by Sujit by killing all 3 of them and soon join another gang and becomes really powerful. Raju is sent off for education abroad, and the story moves into a conflict between son (Amitabh again) and his father when Raju wants to marry Geeta. What happens next ?

Dushman (released in 1998) - A great movie directed by Tanuja Chandra, and starring Kajol, Sanjay Dutt, and Ashutosh Rana

For some time now, the concept of villains in Hindi Movies has undergone a transformation. With the depiction of the angry young man by Amitabh Bachchan who acts as a rebel, and then the villain played by Shahrukh Khan in the 3 movies he did on a trop (Baazigar, Darr and Anjaam), a villain came to be a seen as a person who became a villain due to circumstances, and that there were shades of grey (rather than a pure Black and White) in the depiction of a villain. And then came this movie which showcased a pure villain, who had no real reasons that could give a reason as to why they became a villain; just pure lust that could turn a person into capable of killing. The movie was the debut movie of director Tanuja Chandra, and gave her a good reputation. The movie had music by Uttam Singh, with an incredible sad song by Jasjit Singh (Chithi Na Koi Sandesh).
The movie had some good performances by Kajol (in a double role), Sanjay Dutt (as a blind major), and Ashutosh Rana as the cold blooded killer who can kill without mercy and who can create the total sense of fear in Kajol.



The movie shows the life of twin sisters, Sonia and Naina Sehgal (both played by Kajol). Sonia is more of an extrovert, and is in a relationship with Jas Arora (with both of them committed to marry each other); Naina is more of the introvert - and both of them are deeply in love with each other. And then there is the postman, Gokul, who rapes and kills without mercy and whom the police is hunting. And then the unthinkable happens, with Gokul finding Sonia alone at home when he comes to deliver something, and then he does rape and kill her. This is a horrible tragedy for the family, and they are not able to take this loss.
Naina wants to find who the killer is, and is soon very suspicious of Gokul, and even gets the police to question him. However, Gokul is able to use a social worker to get the police to get off his case and is again free. There is also a nurse who is in love with Gokul, but when she gets inconvenient, he even bumps her off in a forest type of scenario. In the meantime, Naina has come in touch with a blind major (war hero), Suraj Singh Rathod (Sanjay Dutt), who tries to give her courage.
Now, Gokul wants to take revenge on Naina, since he believes that she has got the police on his back and is a threat to him, and this leads to the final confrontation between Naina and Gokul.

Majboor (released in 1974) - starring Amitabh Bachchan, Parveen Babi, Pran, and Farida Jalal

Majboor was a movie, released in 1974, that shows the fate of a man, who gets stuck in a web of his own making and is now making frantic efforts to extricate himself from that web. Majboor means 'Somebody who is being forced into a course of action'. The movie was a fairly decent hit, with some good performance by the leading man, the superstar Amitabh Bachchan. The movie was directed by Ravi Tandon, and produced by Premji. The movie had some good music by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, and the story of the movie was written by the hit pair of Javed Akhtar-Salim Khan (who had written many other leading movie stories as well). The stars of the movie, included, besides Amitabh Bachchan, Parveen Babi, Pran, Madan Puri, Rehman and Farida Jalal.
The movie is apparently based on an earlier American movie called Zigzag (released in 1970), based on the same subject (that of an innocent man framing himself to collect money that his family will need, since he believes that he is on his death bed, but then gets cured and now wants his freedom back).



So, Amitabh Bachchan leads a simple life as a travel agent, with his mother, his brother and his wheelchair bound sister (Farida Jalal) depending on him for the running of the family. And then, it seems that the gods have frowned down on him, and he starts suffering headaches, which leads to the diagnosis of an incurable brain tumor. But, what worried him apart from death is the fact that since he is the sole bread winner of the family, what will happen after his death ? Who will take care of him family ? This makes him even more desperate.
And in this desperation, he strikes upon an idea. One of his clients dies, and the brother of the dead man offers a reward of Rs. 5 lakhs for the finding of the murderer. And Rs. 5 lakh is a huge amount. Ravi (Amitabh) plays a game in which he will be blamed for the murder, and his family will get the Rs. 5 lakh. Everything goes according to plan, and he is caught and sentenced to death for the murder. And then, something else happens. While in jail, he suffers a major attack, and is taken to hospital where his tumor is cured; now he wants his life back, but he has already plotted his one role in the murder and is a sentenced criminal. How does he get his life back, and get the sentence reversed ? It's a taut tale, fast moving, also starring the beautiful Parveen Babi.

Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (1974) starring Manoj Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, and Zeenat Aman

The struggle to remain good and maintain high morals when facing adverse situations in life can be a hard struggle; after all, there are a number of movies depicting how a criminal rose up in life because of poverty are a large number. Manoj Kumar has made a number of movies on the concept of patriotism, or on the struggle in life between the good and the bad, with this movie being an integral part of his collection. The name 'Roti Kapda aur Makaan' delineates this struggle, with the words literally translating into the following - Food, Clothes and House (Shelter), depicting the necessities of life.
The movie was a very successful movie, having struck a chord in the audience about the struggle to make ends meet and the moral problems that get associated with such struggles, becoming the most successful movie of 1974. The movie was made (produced and directed) by Manoj Kumar, and like many of his other movies, was a multi-starrer, starring Shashi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Amitabh Bachchan, Moushmi Chatterjee, besides Manoj Kumar in the lead role.
Some of the songs of the movie were very successful, such as "Hay Hay Yeh Majboori", "Main Na Bhoolunga", etc. The music for the movie was by Laxmikant-Pyarelal (earning him a Filmfare Award Nomination, and winning the Best Lyrics award for Santosh Anand).



The movie is about the head of a family, Bharat (Manoj Kumar) who takes on the responsibility for his family after the retirement of his father. He has 2 younger brothers Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Deepak (Dheeraj Kumar), as well as a sister Champa, who is eligible to get married. However, he is not so successful, not able to find work despite having a good education. The only earning he has is through a job as a singer, but it does not pay that much; this makes his girlfriend Sheetal (Zeenat Aman) extremely frustrated, and she starts working as a secretary to a rich businessman Mohan Babu (Shashi Kapoor), who starts falling in love with her; she is seemingly more interested in his wealth.
Bharat in the meantime is going through more struggles; his efforts to become a builder end in failure when the Government takes over his building site and leaves him with grave financial problems. Sheetal also gets engaged to her boss, and then Bharat's father dies. Even when a suitor is found for his sister Champa, Bharat is unable to get the required amount of money for the marriage. What does Bharat do ? How does he resist the temptation to get into crime ?

Bombay to Goa (1972) - starring Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Aruna Irani and Mehmood, with some good music

Bombay to Goa is one of the earlier movies of Amitabh Bachchan, and hence, at those times, there were roles that were not written solely for him, but since he was a young and upcoming actor, the movie did showcase him; with the movie "Bombay to Goa" being meant to launch the brother of Mehmood, Anwar Ali, and also showcase the talent of Amitabh Bachchan.
The movie is mostly about a bus journey, taken by a young girl where she is seeking to escape the clutches of a man looking to kill her (he has already taken money from her and also killed his own partner for the same money). The bus journey provides her (and the viewers) with a lot of adventure, and also makes her more mature.
The movie was produced by NC Sippy and directed by S. Ramanathan; and stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Aruna Irani and Mehmood. The music for the movie was given by R.D.Burman.



Mala's picture appears in a magazine, submitted by 2 friends of Mala (Sharma (Shatrughan Sinha), and Verma (Manmohan)); however her parents are very surprised and astonished to see these photos, and plan to marry her off to the son of their friend. However, Mala is certainly not ready to marry somebody whom she does not know and dreams of a film career. She does not understand the attitude of her parents, takes a lot of money from her parents without their knowing, and runs away from home.
She hands the money over to Sharma and Verma; and seeing this much money, their intention changes and they fight among themselves for the money, with Sharma killing Verma. Mala sees this, and is now running for her life from Sharma and tries to escape on a bus that is on the way to Goa. However, Sharma soon finds her and then enters Ravikumar (Amitabh Bachchan) who wants to save Mala. Eventually Mala starts to trust Ravikumar. The movie becomes very interesting due to the various assorted passengers on the bus, representing a cross section of people from all over India, with Mehmood playing the role of the conductor of the bus, and his brother, Anwar Ali, playing the driver Rajesh.

Guddi (1971) - the movie that made Jaya Bachchan famous and known as an accomplished actor

Guddi was a movie released in 1971, produced and directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee (who made a number of famous movies during the 70's) and was written by Gulzar. However, the movie is best famous for giving Jaya Bachchan, then a young and upcoming actress, a canvas for her to show her acting skills and fortunately for her, the movie did well and was praised (thus leading to a lot of praise for Jaya Bachchan). The movie also starred Dharmendra, Utpal Dutt, and had a number of other starts such as Amitabh Bachchan, Om Prakash and Pran making guest appearances in the movie; this was also because the movie was also about a big star and his work in Bollywood, so a lot of details about Bollywood were shown in the movie. In fact, some other stars such as Biswajeet, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Naveen Nischol, Om Prakash, Pran, Shashikala and Mala Sinha played cameo roles in the movie.
The movie also had some good music with songs such as "Bole Re Papihara" and "Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena" (sung by Vani Jairam) becoming very famous for their classical background. The music for the film was given by Vasant Desai.



The movie is about the concept of being attracted by the on-screen personality of a star, based on what the star plays as characters, instead of knowing the real life of the star (and where the character of the star could be very different from the characters played). In this case, Kusum (Jaya Bachchan) is a schoolgirl who develops an incredible crush for the movie star Dharmendra; she lives with her family; but when she visits Mumbai, that is when the crush that she has for Dharmendra really reveals itself.
At that time, her sister-in-law's brother, Navin (Bengali film actor Samit Bhanja) falls in love with her, but when she is so much after Dharmendra, it is impossible that she could even listen to anybody else. Navin takes help from his own uncle, Utpal Dutt, who also knows Dharmendra, and they resolve to show Kusum the difference between the reel life and real life (taking help from Dharmendra for this).