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Reviews
Kyon Ki... (2005)
Kyunki it doesn't involve the viewer totally
So, this one from Mr. Priyadarshan is not going to make you laugh. The film shot well in the verdurous landscape of The Nilgiris, revolves around a sanatorium run by a gruff ex-army doctor Khurana (Om Puri), who along with his daughter Tanvi (Kareena Kapoor)manage the place. Anand (Salman Khan)is the new patient that has been admitted in this sanatorium. He is in this condition because of the shock when he realized that he had accidentally caused his fiancée's death by the way of a prank. It also turns that a doctor in the sanatorium, Sunil (Jackie Shroff) is an old acquaintance of this new patient. The movie revolves around how Anand, with the efforts of docs Tanvi and Sunil is brought back to his state of normalcy or sanity. But, there is a slight twist towards the end which somehow ands up salvaging the otherwise humdrum script.
The movie moves pretty sluggishly in the first half. The sequences where Anand is brought to the sanatorium and his subsequent mischiefs, the association with the other inmates, could have been tightly edited and packed, but unfortunately, they aren't. Similarly, Anand's track with his love Maya (Rimi Sen) isn't developed strongly so as to involve the average viewer totally. It is only when the viewer begins to feel that the movie is going to come to a predictable end that there is some redemption of sorts by the film maker.
Salman Khan's performance is unexceptional. There isn't a major difference in his performance when he is playing an 'insane' person and when he is 'normal'. Kareena Kapoor is good in her role. Om Puri plays the brusque dad cum sanatorium boss very well. Jackie Shroff is very good in his part. Even after all these years he proves that he can deliver the goods with ease. Rimi Sen is only in a brief role but she looked good in it. Sunil Shetty is in a minuscule role. The others like Atul Parchure, Arun Bakshi, Asrani, Manoj Joshi, Nagesh Bhosle, Javed Khan have supported the main cast well.
Don (2006)
OK comparisons are inevitable but the movie isn't that bad
OK first things first. Shah Rukh Khan is no Big B but then he is much better in this film than he is in his sugar-coated tearjerkers produced exclusively by Messrs. Johar and Chopra. Comparisons with the original DON are inevitable but some new twists redeem the film and give it some air of freshness if not more. It will be fair as well as unfair to compare the old Don with the new one. Fair because the film is a remake of the old Don and it is nothing but natural tendency to compare it with the older film. Unfair because we should not expect everything to be better or same as the things in the previous Don as it is not possible. The music of the new film is passable (don't compare it with Kalyanji Anandji's music) and seems to be in sync with the mood of the film. Expectations from this film are very high to state the truth. However if one just discounts the fact that he/she will get to see and experience the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Don then there is more scope to enjoy the film.
Shah Rukh Khan tries hard to match upto Amitabh Bachchan's style and the effort is palpable especially in the first half. But of course he doesn't measure upto to the tall Big B, quite literally actually. Although he must be commended for his full commitment and honesty to the role. May be it was Shah Rukh Khan's own interpretation of Don which he presents on screen but most of the people who've seen Bachchan as Don still associate Big B as Don. Shah Rukh as the Don of this era is sleek, dabbling with the latest gizmos and gadgets, lethal without appearing as much and undoubtedly the heart and soul of the film. And yet despite all this it is somewhat implausible to accept him as Don (here we go again with the comparisons). For those who have not seen Amitabh Bachchan's rendition of the same role 28 years back, they may like Shah Rukh Khan's portrayal of the same character in this film.
Priyanka Chopra is neither very bad nor remarkable in the role of Roma. Needless to say that she lacks the flair and poise of Zeenat Aman. And her performance is nothing to write home about actually. Arjun Rampal is Jasjit, the character played by Pran in the old film. To be fair to Arjun Rampal, he just about manages not to mess up with his role. Also his role in this new version is quite limited when compared with Pran's role in the original. (inadvertantly another comparison). Isha Koppikar is fine in her role as Anita and does what is required of her character that is to add to the glamour quotient in the film. Kareena Kapoor's brief special appearance in the beginning as Kamini (the role that Helen had played in the original) is very good and one wishes that she had been granted more screen time. Pavan Malhotra is seen after along time in this film as Narang. He plays the role of Narang very well and is at par with Kamal Kapoor's performance as Narang in the original. One just wonders why he isn't seen more often in the films these days. Om Puri is virtually wasted. A fine actor such as Om Puri surely deserves more lengthier roles than just a few scenes here and there. Last but not the least Boman Irani is superb as DCP De Silva. In the old Don this role was played brilliantly by the suave Iftekhar. Boman Irani as DCP Des Silva doesn't disappoint and on the contrary excels in this role. Not only does he do complete justification to his character he seems at ease doing it. He is surely one of the actors to watch out for not only in the film but also in the future.
Farhan Akhtar's direction is good but at certain times it is found wanting such as in controlling the pace of this thriller. It could have been better. But overall, it appears that director Farhan Akhtar created a film the way he wanted to create. It is something like 'If I want to remake a superhit film from the 1970s today and set it completely in today's milieu then this is how I will do it' and he succeeds to a fair extent. Many have felt that the length could have been edited. May be. But it could have been only marginally. Also what Akhtar could have done is to create completely contrasting characters of Don and Vijay (even though Shah Rukh doesn't know good Awadhi) by lending the character of Vijay a different background instead of the UP background. But then 'Khaike paan Banaras wala' wouldn't have been possible in this film I guess. The dialogues have punch and the cinematography is very good. All in all certainly worth a dekko. If not anything else but for comparisons and curiosity. Comparisons, yes thats where we started from and I had mentioned at the start that comparing Farhan Akhtar's Don with the older one will be unfair and limit the scope to enjoy this film. But that (comparison) is what happened unintentionally in the review above. Well, thats one risk that always exists when one attempts a remake of an earlier superhit. Are J P Dutta and Ram Gopal Varma listening?
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006)
Different in a familiar Karan Johar way
One couldn't just escape the feeling while watching Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna that it primarily caters to the Indians living in the Western hemisphere. The movie, set in New York City deals primarily with the theme of infidelity.
Shah Rukh Khan plays a partially handicapped football coach Dev Saran who is married to a successful magazine editor Rhea Saran (Preity Zinta). Concurrent to this relationship is the marriage between Rishi(Abhishek Bachchan), a PR firm owner and Maya(Rani Mukherjee), a teacher. Rishi and Maya's marriage too seems to have run out of fizz. The movie tackles the subject of infidelity in an ingenious manner.
The movie has moments in the first half which can be classified as funny. Amitabh Bachchan(who plays Rishi's father Sam Talwar)is effortless as always in his cameo. He is largely responsible for keeping up the fun quotient in the movie. Kiron Kher (who plays Dev's mother) is also good in her role though she doesn't have anything substantial to do. She has been under-utilized in the movie by the director Karan Johar. There are moments in the first part of the first half that show glimpses of Shah Rukh Khan's restrained, controlled performance but unfortunately they do not last long. For then the archetypal Shah Rukh Khan of today's Yash Chopra-Karan Johar type takes over. There are sequences in the movie where Shah Rukh Khan hams unnecessarily which attenuates his otherwise passable performance.
Among the actresses it is Rani Mukherjee who seems to have the more meatier of the role. Rani Mukherjee has come a long way since being the Khandala girl. Rani Mukherjee as the insular wife of an extrovert man has done well in a slightly complex character. Abhishek Bachchan fits in well with his carefree character in the movie. Preity Zinta could have been more emotive though. One particular scene involving Preity Zinta which is very good is the one when Shah Rukh confides to Preity Zinta about his infidelity. Arjun Rampal is insignificantly fine in his brief role. There are special appearances by Kajol and John Abraham in a song.
The cinematography and music are surely among the plus points of the movie. The editing could have been more succinct though in the second half which has a heavy dose of melodrama. The movie could have been shortened in duration especially in the second half where it appears to flounder after a point before coming to the foreseeable denouement.
Watch it for Amitabh Bachchan's cameo. You may after all not see Amitabh, Abhishek and Shahrukh together in a movie in the recent future. Also there might have been movies worse than this that you would have watched in the past. So you can certainly go and catch this movie at least once.
Omkara (2006)
Shakespeare set in rural UP
Omkara is a conglomeration of Shakespeare with the UP countryside. It can be also simply viewed as a love story interspersed with misunderstandings. Omkara, which is Vishal Bharadwaj's adaptation of Othello has some potent performances by all the lead actors.
The director Bharadwaj had set his previous film Maqbool, which was based on Macbeth, in the Muslim milieu in the backdrop of the Mumbai underworld. This time in Omakara, the setting is the rural badland of western UP. The background and the setting of the film is quite authentic.
Omkara (Ajay Devgan)is the kingpin of a local gang of criminals. Langda Tyagi (Saif Ali Khan) and Kesu Firangi (Vivek Oberoi) are his lieutenants. When Bhai Sahab (Naseeruddin Shah), who is also Omkara's mentor, gets a ticket for the Lok Sabha elections, he appoints Omkara as his successor in the state assembly. Omkara in turn selects the young Kesu, instead of the senior Langda as his successor to lead the gang, contrary to the popular belief. This decision makes Langda incensed and he plans revenge. Langda's incendiary talks to Omkara on one hand and to Kesu on the other leads to complexities and misunderstandings in a hitherto united and trusting group. Langda not only incites Omkara against his love Dolly (Kareena Kapoor) but also against his successor Kesu. Langda, making fine use of his guile, makes Omkara believe that the love of his life Dolly and his trusted lieutenant Kesu are in a relationship which cannot be called platonic.
The film explores the simple and basic human characteristics of trust and mistrust, embellished lies, deceit and jealousy. Konkona Sen Sharma as Langda's wife Indu is also very good. It is incredulous to see Saif Ali Khan so brilliantly portraying the vindictive Langda Tyagi with the typical rustic parlance.
Omkara is a dark and brutal film where characters are not just characters but could also be real people that one encounters in their social milieu. The director is brutally authentic in his execution of the film.