Funny are these titles when they unknowingly make fun of themselves.  It was Total Siyapaa which lived up to its name and Bewakoofiyan this week which again lives up to its name.

This is a rom-rom begins with the ambitious and confident Mohit (Ayushmann Khurarna) , a sales executive at an airline company. He anticipates promotion at his work, and gets it too.  Mayera, his love is a bank employee who earns a tad more than him, but he doesn’t mind that too.  Mayera wants Mohit to meet her dad (Rishi Kapoor), and put forward the marriage proposal.  The shrewd father however disapproves in their first attempt of proposal, but later decides to keep a probation period.  But, as fate would have it, Mohit loses his job as the recession hits the industry.  The rest of the story is about how this crisis affects all these three directly or indirectly and takes a toll on their future plans.

Bewakoofiyaan has a plot which can be exploited very well to generate some humorous sequences. Unfortunately, there’s hardly a scene or two which does that. The writing by Habib Faisal is lackluster with hardly any memorable moments. The scenes try to be funny but turn out to be nothing exciting as the reactions from the characters are too predictable.

There is a progress in the story for sure, which makes it somewhat bearable.  The love-birds lingo which Mohit and Mayera use is another thing that goes in favor of the story.

Coming to the performances, Sonam is good as the urban-working-cool-chick. Also, it seemed like she was given the freedom to pick her own wardrobe and the diva tried to shower as much glamour with some cool outfits (except one place).  Ayushmann gets a role that had similar shades of Vicky Donor – romance, financial and personal crisis.  There was nothing new that could be seen in Bewakoofiyaan from the dimple dude except for the scenes where he displays the inferiority complex. Rishi Kapoor’s role was poorly written with unattractive lines. However, in a couple of scenes, he shines. The coffee-shop scene towards the climax is noteworthy. Music by Raghu Dixit is good for a couple of tracks. Since, this is an YRF product, the technical quality is good too.

Overall, the humour lacked the punch which is important for rom-coms like Bewakoofiyaan.

With an actor like Rishi Kapoor on board, and not giving him an impactful role, is the biggest bewakoofi of the film. An additional bewakoofi is the bikini act by Sonam.

It’s laudable when someone tries to make a light-hearted entertainer basing on the animosity that Hindustan and Pakistan have towards each other. Last year, we had had this cross-border comedy War Yaar Chodd Na yaar which explores the lighter side of the hatred. Total Siyapaa also attempts a comedy basing on the popular friction between the nations, showing that at the end of the day we are descendants of apes and humor has no border.

Set in London, this is the story of the chaos that happens in a span of one day. Aman (Ali Zafar) is a Pakistani and a musician in London. His love, Asha (Yami Gautam) insists him to come home and meet her family. Asha belongs to a loud Punjabi family, who are a bunch of cartoons.  Asha’s mother (Kirron Kher) knows that he is a Muslim, bit doesn’t mind. However, when she learns that he is a Pakistani, she gets furious.  Asha’s brother Manav is a born Pakistani hater, who never stops picking up fights with the Pakistani neighbors in the apartment.  Similarly, other family members are also eccentric in their own ways.  Amidst all the mess and antipathy,  Aman drops a can a frozen soup on a stranger’s head on the road. The siyappas then get stacked one upon the other creating crazy situations in the rest of the movie.

The movie is more of a sitcom filled with comedy of errors. However, if it is not extra-ordinary you cannot stand a sitcom after half-an-hour.  The film begins well with good humor and then slightly becomes a passable humor and transforms into a mediocre humor later.  The best part, however is the movie wraps up in 90 minutes.

Kirron Kher has a terrific screen presence and comic timing that gives the life to the movie in the first half. Ali Zafar offers nothing new. He has stereotyped himself by doing very similar roles in all his films. Also, he confines all his expressions to the up-and-down movements of his eye-brows. The music he composed in fact contributed more to the movie than his monotonous performance. Yami was decent and made a great pair with the handsome Zafar. The ensemble cast was excellent though with super comic timing.

The major drawback is the writing by Neeraj Pandey which fails to sustain the interest after the initial promising 30 minutes.

In short, an opportunity wasted. However, you can give it a try when it premieres on TV.

Sometimes, even if an already seen story is told in a distinctive style, you would tend to say that the new one is a coincidence rather than a copy. Queen also has resemblance to two good films of 2012, but is unique is its own way.

Rani (Kangana Ranaut) is a simple homely girl in Delhi pursuing Home Science. Vijay (Raj Kummar Rao) is head over heels in love with her and she eventually falls to him. Vijay moves to London, but returns as a changed man who feels that the Salwar Kameez clad Rani doesn’t match to his status anymore. When the pre-wedding celebrations are in full swing, Vijay breaks the marriage.  Rani is broken and she decides to go to Paris to get some respite from the heart-break. Her experiences in the new found world and how she deals with the broken marriage forms the rest of the story.

The scenes in the first half of remind of Cocktail and you cannot stop relating the equation of Kangana-Lisa Haydon to Diana Penty – Deepika.  The plot is also similar. However, Vikas Bahl has written the role of Rani in a very raw and natural way which connects much better. The second half reminds us of another movie of 2012 again, and that’s English Vinglish.  We have the sweet international friends the protagonist finds in the new country. Here also, we have one gora hitting on her. However, again the writing of the role comes to the rescue making it different by the things taking a natural flow.

The first and foremost thing one would talk about once you exit the hall is Kangana’s performance.  She is phenomenal as Rani. The transformation from the naivety to wisdom is so gradual and subtle, and that requires great skill.  Rani’s resilience is inspiring for many women, to say the least.  Lisa Haydon gets a substantial role unlike Rascals which even had Kangana doing noting but wearing sleazy outfits. All these talented actors need is good roles, which they got through Queen. Raj Kummar Rao plays the self-flattering and the hypocrite so well that you even start hating him.

Some scenes are extremely well-written conveying a lot symbolically.  For example, at a coffee shop when Vijay tells Rani that he is going to break the marriage, she gets panicky and rubs her hands against the cell-phone. When she exits, he brushes the mehendi particles off from the table.  A handful of some more such impressive scenes made it more intriguing.

However, apart from the frequent resemblances to Cocktail and English Vinglish, the other drawback is the pace. The movie crawls at a pace of a tortoise, with hardly the story moving forward.  Amit Trivedi’s music and Bobby’s camera work are adequate.

Queen is a definitely a one-time watch for Kangana’s performance and a must watch for women to get inspired from Rani’s resilience.

12 x 1 = 12

12x 2 = 24

..

12 x 10 = 120

When the writer-director Pavan Kriplani memorized this table of 12 in his 3^rd grade, it somehow stayed permanently in the mind. And that came handy when he made ‘Darr @ The Mall’.  The funda is simple – Let the chudail kill one person every 12 minutes, so that by the end of 10^th iteration, we have killed enough and completed 120 minutes too.

The Ragini MMS director has come up with this horror flick, which is purely a template based movie, where the title appears after the first murder, followed by the hero’s entry to the haunted place, followed by the serial deaths of a closed group. Of course, this is all done for a purpose, which is obviously explained by the ghost at the end to our beloved hero.

Following are the chosen elements that fill the template.

Haunted place – Mall

Hero – Jimmy Shergill, who is appointed as a security head (prop: a torch with Eveready batteries)

Closed group – Mall owner; Mall owner’s muse; Mall owner’s daughter; Mall owner’s daughter’s boyfriend; Mall owner’s daughter’s boyfriend’s sister and so on..

Placing the plot in a mall is the only aspect that makes it a tad different than using a haveli, villa or a hill station.  The horror sequences do send shivers down the spine, but only at very few occasions.  The trepidation factor becomes pretty low as the movie progresses. The director introduces the size, structure and strength of the ghost too often and too clearly that expect-the-unexpected moments are zero. Till the penultimate five minutes, though the movie doesn’t have extra-ordinary moments, it maintains dignity by not having ridiculous moments/dialogues. Thanks to the climax scene, it fulfills that requirement too.

There is nothing extra-ordinary about the performances either. This is one of the n bad choices Jimmy has made in his career in picking films.  Arif Zakaria is wasted too. The sound design helped in getting some sequences click well though.  Cinematography was effective in creating the right environment.  The monotonous and predictable plot made the 2 hour movie seem like 3 hours.

The insipid horror of Darr @ the mall tries hard to trigger nature’s call but ends up in inflammation of the eye-ball.

When you list down the best rom-coms of movies made on the earth, you will observe that in fact a layer of emotional quotient is the hidden heart. Hasee Toh Phasee undoubtedly fits the bill in qualifying for one of the best rom-coms Bollywood has produced.

Again, it’s not a rom-com in a conventional sense. It’s not a battle of sexes either. It is a story that has its natural flow with its characters taking the movie forward.

Nikhil (Siddharth Malhotra) is the odd man out in his family having his own way of building his life. So is Meeta (Parineeti Chopra) with an aberrant behavior but with a mind of a genius. Nikhil attends a wedding and he meets Meeta, when she is running away from her abode.  At the wedding, he falls in love with Karishma, who is also Meeta’s sister. After 7 years, Nikhil and Karishma finally get engaged. Meeta returns but is kept away from the family by Karishma, and Nikhil befriends her.  The rest of the story is how the equations change with the situations.

The story-line at the highest layer seems to be wafer-thin. However the writing takes us deeper into the complexity of the situations making a strong connect with the audience.  Of course, there is some cinematic liberty taken, but the majority was a laudable dealing.  The humor is very natural, and tickles you with its funny moments.  Every scene between Siddharth and Parineetha were flawlessly written. A couple of scenes might even leave you moist-eyed.  Such is the impact. Kudos to Harshavardhan Kulkarni for his writing and Vinil Mathws for the execution.

Parineethi Chopra is simply taking big leaps repeatedly with every movie she does!  She is extra-ordinarily brilliant. There is a thin line between acting as a retard and playing a character that has an aberrant behavior and presentation. She understands that thin line so well.  A slot is reserved for her in the Best Actor (Female) in all the award functions next year. Siddharth Malhotra is a revelation! A mature performance indeed. The entire ensemble greatly complemented the leads, namely Adah Sharma and Manoj Joshi .

Cinematography was good, and so were the melody tracks composed by Vishal-Shekar.  A minor drawback of the movie is its length. A trimmed version without some unnecessary tracks would have helped.

Hasee Toh Phasee, not just has enough ‘Hasee’, but the emotions that are woven around it will surely touch your hearts for sure. This one cannot be missed!