MUKOYAR

  3.5 Stars (out of 4) Early in Raajneeti (“Politics”), a veteran politician worries that the hot-headed young members of his party will screw up everything that he and his allies have worked for their whole lives. And that’s exactly what happens in this political soap opera. Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) and Veerendra (Manoj Bajpai) are rising stars in a political party headed by Veerendra’s father, Bhanu. Bhanu’s brother, Chandra (Chetan Pandit) — who’s also Prithvi’s father — is his right-hand man. Chandra’s youngest son, Samar (Ranbir Kapoor), returns from studying in New York for his uncle’s birthday party. When Bhanu suffers a stroke on his birthday, it sets off a power struggle between Prithvi and Veerendra, who sees himself as rightful heir to lead the party, despite his villainous mustache and penchant for satin suits. Handsome Prithvi is more popular, but he’s not such a great guy either. Bhanu recovers enough to name Chandra acting president in the hopes of mainta...

The movie is a very predictable love story full of clichés, the very Bollywood-style romances that it aspires to spoof. The film reminded me of an assignment in film school where we had to make a remix sequence. ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ is a bit like that — a montage of scenes and songs from the various Dharma Productions/Yash Raj Films/Sanjay Bhansali love stories. Like any of these other productions, the packaging is great but what’s different about this story? It’s pointless trying to even go through the nuances of the plot because there isn’t any. A love triangle with several expected twists that finally proves the inevitability of how everyone eventually falls in love no matter how much they hate love stories. The basic premise: Our heroine loves love stories and has a perfect one of her own till she suddenly decides to fall for our hero who believes in everything but love. Our Casanova hero falls head over heels in love as typically as one can despite having been repulsed by the whol...

Rahul Dholakia’s ‘Lamhaa’ is an ambitious attempt, trying to bring to fore the multifaceted conundrum that the Kashmir crisis is. For the most part it is quite a realistic depiction of the various issues that plague Kashmir. The film, probably deliberately, is more like a documentary than a cohesive narrative that unfolds to tell a compelling story. Kashmiriyat, the catalytic role that ISI plays in the valley, the vested interests of the Indian and Pakistani governments in keeping the issue alive, the plight of Kashmiri pandits, the atrocities by the security personnel, the trials suffered by the widows and orphans caught in the midst of all this and foremost, the systematic brainwashing of young and vulnerable minds to join the ‘holy’ Jehad – Dholakia attempts to address all these issues in this film. Given that Kashmir cannot be understood from a limited perspective and any portrayal of this contentious issue needs a holistic approach, Dholakia fails to provide a compre...

I wish I could at least call “Khatta Meetha” a mindless comedy but it isn’t even that. Priyadarshan has thrown in oodles of melodrama and dollops of attempted-morals in a film that is for the most part intended to be a funny political satire. The film has a struggling hero, corrupt elder brothers, sarcastic sisters-in-law, a righteous patriarch and eve-teasing politicians, reminiscent of B-grade Hindi film sagas from the 1970s. Akshay Kumar is a road construction worker struggling to make it big like his dishonest brothers. Initially it seems like honesty is the only impediment to Akshay’s road ahead but as the film progresses you realize that he is not that honest after all. Then why does he try to reiterate again and again to his elder brothers that they are successful only because they are unscrupulous? The narrative is all over the place, an item number here, a song sequence there, lots of drama, an attempted suicide, an alleged murder and a brutal death of the villain...

While commenting on the Lindsay Lohan arrest and coniction, Asha tweeted thus: “Salman Khan’s wondering why Lindsay Lohan got 90 days jail 4 drunk driving? These Americans don’t know how 2 treat their Stars!” The veteran singer shows rare courage to show how a senior professional should behave when one of their ilk gets into legal problems. Recently, when Akshay Kumar was compared to a jackass by a scribe, Amitabh Bachchan rushed to help the superstar and trash the journalist community. Salman Khan, the bad boy of Bollywood, was found on the other side of law several times. He was accused of killing a blackbuck in the ’90s.