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mharishkashyap
Reviews
Damini (1993)
Wonderful depiction of reality!!!!!!
Damini can be summarized as the hallmark of 4 people - Meenakshi Sheshadri, Sunny Deol, Amrish Puri and of course, Rajkumar Santoshi. All of them are at their exhilarating best in this movie. Not many movies have given such ample scope to an actress in India. Meenakshi Sheshadri does a fabulous job in this.
Rajkumar Santoshi has done realistic and hard-hitting movies, this tops them all. If you thought Ghayal was wonderful, this is terrific. He continued the same trend with Ghatak. They Sunny Deol-Rajkumar Santoshi is the Indian version of Martin Scorsese-Robert DeNiro.
Amrish Puri is another deserving mention. No actor can portray a villainous role better than Puri saab. He excels here as the scheming and "partially-deaf" lawyer, Inderjeet Chaddha who has a habit of swaying his hair.
All the supporting cast were wonderful. I have always hated Rishi Kapoor as an actor (mainly because of those white pants, white shoes and dhol songs) apart from Bobby. But this is one movie in which he brings the depth and range of a Kapoor. Kulbhushan Kharbanda has always been a fantastic, but underrated actor. In fact, he has been underutilized even in this movie. Tinnu Anand is an excellent supporting act. Not to forget, the Hari Kaka has also done a good job (the final frozen shot of the movie).
I have kept this section for last deliberately - Sunny Paaji's National Award winning performance. Everyone knows Sunny Paaji's best performances have been in Rajkumar Santoshi's movies, but this performance can be talked only in superlative terms. As the drunk, disinterested yet smart lawyer, he delivers the performance of his life. Even if you are not a Sunny Deol fan, you will certainly become one after watching this. If you started watching Sunny Deol movies with movies like "Indian", "Jaal", etc, you have got a wrong start. Start with Ghayal, Damini and Ghatak.
A must watch movie, if you watch movies very closely for their depth and reality. My rating: 8/10.
Lakshya (2004)
A movie about growing up!!!!
Not many movies have been made in India about someone growing up as a person, although every other film is being promoted so. The film, according to the director Farhan Akhtar depicts his own life before he ventured out into film making. This is also his second film as a director, following the cult-hit "Dil Chahta Hain".
The film depicts the story of a person, Karan Shergill and how he transitions from being an aimless youth to a mature and confident person. Karan Shergill is a college-going guy who has no aim in life. But when he inadvertently takes up an exam and gets selected for IMA (Indian Military Academy), his life is about to change. He is not aware of the military discipline and ultimately one fine day he runs away from the academy. His parents mock him and his girlfriend scolds him for this decision. What follows is how he corrects his mistake and his ultimate challenge, the Kargil war.
The movie does not just depict Karan's change, but also runs a parallel story of his girlfriend Romi, who is a successful and confident woman, but who also has to deal with issues of her own. Ultimately both the stories collide on the war-front. The story moves at a relatively slower pace and the both of halves of the movie are completely opposite. It is extremely tough to tell by looking at the other half that this is the other half of the same movie. But that is what the movie is all about!!!!! Direction-wise, this is the best effort from Farhan Akhtar yet. Many people felt that if it is possible to himself to surpass his directorial debut, Dil Chahta Hain. But Farhan Akhtar does a brilliant job does a brilliant job of it. It is really surprising to note that the movie got extremely favourable reviews at the time of its release, but was still not a box-office hit.
Acting-wise, Hrithik Roshan excels in his portrayal of Karan Shergill. He has brought out the transition of irresponsible, aimless youth to a determined and focused person extremely effectively. This should definitely be marked as one of the highlights of his career. Preity Zinta carries on her strong character from DCH and is as important to the story as Hrithik Roshan's character is. Boman Irani and Amitabh Bachchan do splendid jobs of their short on screen time. The rest of the supporting cast (specially Sushant Singh) are also fabulous.
The technical department has done a wonderful job in bringing out the beautiful but deserted locales of Ladakh and Kargil. The war sequences are brilliantly shot. It is the first time in Indian cinema that a war movie looks like a war movie and not like an action movie. But finally the heroes of the movie are Hrithik Roshan and Farhan Akhtar.
Mahabharat (1988)
The greatest TV series ever!!!!!!
It is simply "the greatest TV series ever created"!!!!! Perfectly created!!!! First of all, adapting the legend of Mahabharatha is itself a monumental task since it is the greatest and the biggest epic ever written on earth. BR Chopra has done a magnificent job of adapting it onto the small screen. What clinches the score is the casting, dialogues, screenplay and direction.
1. Casting - Everyone!!!!!!! No mistake in even a single character, be it even a small one. The best of all is Mukesh Khanna as Bhishma and Nitish Bharadwaj as Krishna. People used to literally call them as their characters even in their personal lives. 2. Dialogues - A single man, Dr.Rahi Masoom Raza. Despite being a Muslim from Ghazipur, UP, he was well-versed in Sanskrit. The dialogues were top-notch and incomparable to anything else. One of the main reasons for the popularity of the serial. 3. Screenplay and Direction - It is the magnum opus of BR Chopra. Each and every scene was perfectly created. Performances were terrific. Costumes, sets are truly reflective of Dwapara Yuga.
I will not delve into the details of the plot since it will result in me over-running the prescribed limit of IMDb message space.
Overall, this is a masterpiece of a TV serial and it will be a Herculean effort to remake. Several rumors float around like Muslim gullies used to be empty during 10-11 AM on Sundays, i.e., during the running time of the serial. Even shops used to be closed because shop-owners themselves used to watch it. I personally remember that every newspaper in South India used to print the dialogues in native languages beforehand for the convenience of the public to understand the Hindi language. I can confidently assert that there are not more than 5% of people who haven't watched this legend. And they are unluckiest of the Indian citizens!!!!!!
Khakee (2004)
One of Amitabh's finest!!!!!
Another trademark Rajkumar Santoshi film, characterized by sterling performances, coupled with top-notch direction. Story may not be perfect, but acting, direction and screenplay are. This is what you expect from a Rajkumar Santoshi film.
Story is the routine police drama, with some surprises thrown in. An honest police officer, Amitabh Bachchan, on the verge of retirement, is sent on a suicidal mission to escort a terrorist (Atul Kulkarni), to Mumbai. Accompanying him is a team consisting of a corrupt, but brave police officer (Akshay Kumar), a rookie inspector (Tushar Kapoor) and 2 constables, all the while chased by a gang of terrorists led by Ajay Devgan. The trials, challenges and betrayals this team faces forms the crux of the story.
Some trademark Rajkumar Santoshi features:- 1. Amitabh's altercation with a police officer by reminding him of his duty. 2. The scene where Ajay Devgan and his gang has the team hostage. 3. The climax. 4. Amitabh Bachchan's meeting with the CM.
Everyone has acted well in the movie. This is possibly Amitabh's finest cinematic role after his legendary Vijay Dinanath Chauhan in Agneepath. Ajay Devgan is menacing as Yashwanth Angrey. Akshay Kumar's run of super-roles started with this movie. Atul Kulkarni shows his class. But, the real surprise package of the movie was Tushar Kapoor. It is probably his finest role-to-date.
Don't miss watching this movie!!!! Not for entertainment, but what good performance is all about.
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
Masterpiece!!!!!!!!!
Lagaan, an epic in itself in the Indian cinema circles, like Ramayana and Mahabharatha are in Indian tradition. The movie defines perfection of movie-making spanning a feature-film length "The Making" and a book about it's making. The idea started in 1996, by Ashutosh Gowariker after his last movie, Baazi (an attempt at remake of "Die Hard"), starring Aamir himself was a flop.
Initially, it was rejected by Aamir and several other actors. Aamir himself rejected it 2 times, finally agreeing to take it after several rewrites and even volunteering to produce it himself. The casting itself took almost a year. Aamir, Ashutosh and Reena had multiple trips to London to finalize the British cast.
I will not delve into the shooting schedule, since a whole book has been written about it by Mr.Satyajit Bhatkal.
About the story, it is about a group of villagers, in a village in Uttar Pradesh in 1893, who are forced to pay double land-tax, despite there being no rains in that season. When they go to have the tax cancelled, it results in a confrontation between Bhuvan and Captain Russell, resulting in a challenge from Russell to defeat his team in a cricket match to have their taxes cancelled for 3 years, if they win. If they lose, they'll have to pay triple tax.
What follows is:- One person, Bhuvan versus the entire village (admonishing him for accepting an improbable challenge), Britishers' oppression, creating a team, ignorance of the game on part of the villagers, ignorance of big-match attitude in players, match fixers, social justice, etc. Sounds like a bad-story, but the screenplay and direction is so magnificent that you will not realize you have sat for almost 4 hours to watch this epic.
Another clinching factor of the movie is the background score and music. Very often you find Indian movies with unnecessary dance and song sequences. Here is one movie, which does not take the pace off the proceedings, but adds to it.
The dialogues, accent are perfect penned by Javed Akhtar. The art direction, choreography, supporting cast are very well in sync with each other.
The best thing about the movie is, how the scenes have been visualized by Ashutosh and Aamir. Calling direction as great, fabulous, unbelievable, excellent, etc would be an understatement. It shows the years of hard-work everyone, from Ashutosh Gowariker to Jhamu Sugandh, has put in to make this cult classic.
Truly a masterpiece!!!!!!!!! Hats off to Ashutosh and Aamir for giving us such a wonderful film.......
Ghayal (1990)
Excellent direction, acting
Rajkumar Santoshi is one of the finest directors in the Indian movie industry today and Ghayal is one of his signature movies. It's a wonderful revenge drama with some fine screenplay and good action. All the lead actors have performed excellently, Sunny Deol, Amrish Puri and Om Puri. The scene in the police station when Sunny Deol is locked up and the police officers try to make him take the blame for his brother's death is excellent.
Unfortunately, Ghayal is still categorized as a "Sunny Deol scream" movie. People do not see the intensity of Sunny Deol's acting. He repeated the same in Damini and Ghatak, after which the duo separated. However, Rajkumar Santoshi has found another ally in Ajay Devgan, another top notch actor. Hope we get to see more films like these from him.