Reviews

When Bollywood filmmakers remake a Hollywood film, I wish they would stick to the same duration too! Bang Bang is the Indian remake of Knight and Day, which as far as I remember, was about 110 minutes but the running time of Bang Bang is 156 minutes! For a film with no head or tail, that's quite long!

Harleen (Katrina Kaif) is a bank receptionist who lives with her grand mom-an enthusiastic woman who enters the bathroom when Harleen is having a shower to ask her why she has no boyfriends. Bored with her life, Harleen signs up for a blind date on a website. Enter trigger-happy thief Rajveer (Hrithik Roshan). He has robbed the Kohinoor from London, no less! Since her blind date has not turned up, Rajveer takes over and charms her.

Of course there are people gunning for him because he has the Kohinoor and then starts the non-sense chase, which goes on till the end of the film. Since Harleen was spotted with him, she is in danger too so he has to take care of her and himself. So she will tag along everywhere he goes. While they are in danger they go from one place to another and also make time to sing a song at every fancy location.

There are some terrible brand placements here like Mountain Dew-the hero of the film was made to drink it; he also had to say the tag line loud and clear, Dar ke aage jeet hai!

The makers have obviously pumped in a lot of money here. From shooting in various places from Shimla to Abu Dhabi to Greece. The actors are seen using every mode of transport from speeding bikes, formula one cars, speed boat and even sea planes. If all this could make the film entertaining, the whopping budget would have been worth. There is a difference between spending money and wasting it. Apart from the rooftop jumping in Shimla, no action scene impressed me much. Teaser trailer had more BANG than the movie.

Hrithik Roshan looks good and that's nothing new but don't expect any great acting here since he was just expected to run from one place to the other. Katrina Kaif was given a silly role and there was little she could do about it. Music by Vishal Shekhar is average. Only "Meherbaan" was the song that gave the full feel of what the movie should have been. And about the background score, just one word- BAD!

If your idea of a fun film is watching two good looking stars running around senselessly for two hours and thirty minutes then go and watch Bang Bang.

The makers have put in a lot of money. Is it wasted or well spent, only time will tell. I would suggest you save your hard earned money and watch Bang Bang on TV someday soon. That might be more satisfying. [2/5]

In 2011, Singham came, roared and captured many hearts & a lot was expected from this super-cop as he came out of his den yet again with Singham Returns. Unfortunately, despite Ajay Devgn's immense efforts, it ended up being a disappointing & confused action thriller. For me, the main spoiler was Kareena Kapoor with her over- energetic and over-enthusiastic portrayal.

The plot starts with a police constable being found dead along with an enormous sum of money and is later on charged of being corrupt. The now DCP Singham, discovers the conspiracy behind it and also its masterminds who then kill Singham's mentor and a noble politician, Guruji. How Singham tackles these gundas and once again saves the state is the story that follows.

Rohit Shetty tries really hard to make the sequel grand by inducing more power politics, more singham powers, more big actors, more nonsensical comedy, more over the top action, more save the country philosophy, more social messages ,more media, more glamour & definitely more 'Cars' but it's nothing more than a failed over- ambitious attempt.

He overdid a lot of Singham elements especially Aata Majhi Satakli which kept repeating in every ten minutes. However, the quality of film-making surely improved for Rohit. The way Singham Returns was shot was very vibrant and appealing to the eyes. The Rohit Shetty crew really deserves all the credit to take his technical skills a level up.

The movie's runtime was almost two and a half hours which seems way too long - bad piece of work from the editor. The scope for cutting down illogical Kareena Kapoor scenes was enormous.

An alternate name for the movie could easily have been Cars Return. The movie starts with a car show and ends with a car show. And in every possible action scene you see cars flying, colliding, bombing, crashing and what not. Also , to my amaze, the central minister's car is not bullet proof nowadays. To top it all, the 'DCP' Singham now drives a 'pink' coloured 'Zen Estilo' instead of his usual and more manly Scorpio. Why Singham Why?

The music is average and there is no exceptional song that just makes you go wow! Though Aata Majhi Satakli is catchy, I find it really shitty and irritating with all those crab hands. This music album didn't really work out for Meet Bros Anjjan.

As I kept watching the movie, I Just realized that its only Ajay Devgn who can totally pull off a Singham and the sole reason for it is his intensity which cannot be matched by any of his counterparts. His eyes are just enough to make you believe that a super-cop like Singham could exist and his voice and delivery makes ordinary dialogues look real classy. If Singham works for me, it is only Ajay who makes it happen.

As much as Ajay was brilliant in his portrayal, Kareena was dreadfully irritating as Avni. This was perhaps the most over-acting done by her after Main Prem Ki Deewani Hun. Probably If she would not have been in the movie, I would have given it an extra star. I know I am being harsh, but seriously, I just can't help it.

Amol gupte really tried hard to do a Prakash Raj but failed terribly. He was far from menacing and his caricatured character made it worse. Also, the Amercian Dasiyan never really helped. Dayanand Shetty aka Daya is Daya, Cut-Copy-Paste from C.I.D. There is also a special sequence where Singham order Daya- Daya Darwaza Tod. Ashwini Kalsekar did okay playing the stereotypical media journalist rather a Barkha Dutt copy. Zakir Hussain is average and offers nothing different or new. Anupam Kher is average in his short and very predictable character. Mahesh Manjrekar suits perfectly in his role of the righteous politician. Sameer Dharmadhikari, Pankaj Tripathi have been poorly utilized. A special mention to the actress who played the dead police constable's wife had a sequence with Ajay Devgn in which she was amazing. Also, Ashok Saraf (from Singham 1) too was missed.

In all, Singham Returns is yet again a Ajay Devgn show but this time with no one there to support him.