Wake Up Sid - Moview Review

Star Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Khanna, Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak
Story: Ayan Mukerji
Lyrics : Javed Akhtar
Music: Shankar Mahadevan, Loy Mendonsa, Ehsaan Noorani
Producer: Karan Johar, Hiroo Johar
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Movie Rating – 3.5/5


Wake Up Sid is a film that reminds you of those college days, when for those naughty few guys in class, life was all about - girls, cars, night life and gaming. Directed by Ayan Mukherji, Ranbir plays the lead role of Sid while the very talented Konkana Sen Sharma is Aisha. Karan Johar's Dharma Productions produces this refreshing entertainer that should be remembered and loved for years to come.

The character of Sid has shades of Hrithik in Lakshya, Aamir / Saif in Dil Chahta Hai and director Ayan Mukherji seems to be a huge fan of Farhan Akhtar and his films. After a long time we have a movie that is restricted to the lead characters, yes the director has included some ill-conceived characters like those played by Rahul Khanna and Kashmeera Shah, but the focus largely remains on Sid and Aisha.

Wake Up Sid strikes the right cord from the onset. With simple but tight screenplay, delicate dialogues and lots of freshness, the movie leaves you tingled all over with joy. No exaggerated scenes, no unnecessarily long flash backs, no fuss, no melodrama, Ayan has given the movie just the perfect treatment it deserved. Hope to see a lot more of this young and talented director. The movie starts off very well, quickly introducing the characters and without wasting time divulges deeply into the lives of Sid and Aisha. You instantly feel the connection with the characters and can easily relate some of your experiences too, and this makes Wake Up Sid a great watch start to finish. The instant birthday celebration, the one where Sid's mom practices English to be her son's friend, the father-son confrontation and later the first pay cheque, are among the many scenes that make an impact.

While the first half is fast-paced, the second half gets a little sluggish and stretched. But as the movie nears the climax, it picks up pace and leaves you heart-warmed. A big round of applause to the entire team, the movie feels right and looks absolutely fantastic on screen. It has what it takes to cast a charismatic spell on its audience. Anil Mehta's cinematography is first-rate, be it the Queen's necklace at Marine Drive, or the Mumbai monsoon, everything is captured beautifully. The background score too is perfectly in tune with the movie. The blending of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy's music into the script, adds to the depth and feel of this light-hearted entertainer. Among all the songs, Iktara stands out the most. And at the end, you walk out of theatres mesmerized with some bitter-sweet memories lingering in your minds.

Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma are rightly cast. No one else could have handled these roles with such dexterity and charm. Ranbir effortlessly fits into the skin of Sid and excels in every scene. Konkona Sen Sharma is always dependable and as Aisha she is at her natural best. Anupam Kher and Supriya Pathak are good.

To sum up, Wake Up Sid is a charming experience. A feel good entertainer for audience of all ages, especially the youngsters. Do watch it.

Review By Ashok Nayak

Movie Review - Kaminey

Movie:Kaminey
Cast: Shahid Kapur, Priyanka Chopra, Amol Gupte
Cinematographer: Tassaduq Hussain
Story Writer: Vishal Bharadwaj
Costume Designer: Dolly Ahluwalia
Music Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Playback Singer: Earl , Kailash Kher, Vishal Bharadwaj, Suresh Wadkar, Vishal Dadlani, Sunidhi Chauhan, Kunal Ganjawala, Mohit Chauhan, Rekha Bharadwaj, Sukhwinder Singh
Lyricist: Gulzar
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Music Company: T-Series



Hail Vishal Bhardwaj, the iconoclast of Indian cinema, the trail-blazer who redefines entertainment with his edge-of-the-seat roller-coaster ride called Kaminey that sucks (can’t lisp here) a viewer into the dark, netherworld of Mumbai through a riveting story of twin brothers, similar in appearance but as different from each other as chalk is from cheese.

Fasten your seat belts folks, and cast that cola aside. You are about to land into the dirty damp world of ‘Kaminey’, populated by bookies, trigger-happy drug mafia, corrupt cops and power-hungry goons with political ambition. In the melee of these kaminey characters unspools the story of Guddu and Charlie (Shahid Kapur), two estranged brothers who have nothing in common, not even their speech defects.

Charlie, who lisps (pronounces ‘sa’ as ‘fa’), is looking for a ‘fortcut’ to make big ‘paifa’ and become a bookie, while Guddu, who stammers, h..h..has a clear life plan charted out before him. He works for an NGO spreading AIDS awareness but - in a delightful irony - ends up impregnating his girlfriend Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) on a romantic night when that little piece of rubber went missing. And now, as he tears down the chart of his life-plan, Guddu has no choice but to unwillingly marry Sweety, not so much out of love for her or the child, but out of fear of her politician brother Bhope Bhau (Amol Gupte), a thickset, full-blooded Marathi manoos who wants to marry off his sister to an influential builder for political mileage.

On the other hand, Charlie, following the ‘fortcut’ to riches, creates a big mess around himself by filching a guitar case containing cocaine worth Rs. 10 crores. Soon, the corrupt cops of anti-narcotics cell and the drug lord Taashi (Tenzing Nima) are on his trail.

In this cat and mouse game, the baddies get mixed up between the twins. Who’s Guddu and who’s Charlie? Amid the shootouts and mayhem that follows, the two brothers rediscover love for each other.


‘Kaminey’ is not a path-breaking film. Nor is it too cerebral or thought-provoking. It is a heady cocktail of art-house realism and Bollywood masala with a distinct Tarantino tang. It is pure entertainment like never presented before in Bollywood.


The film’s breath is its imaginative screenplay which is full of humour-laced situations flicked straight out of life. Rather than opening all the cards at once, the story unravels in a way that keeps the curiosity alive. Though one can foresee the outcome of the story, it’s hard to predict the path it will take to reach that outcome. That’s what keeps you glued to the screen. Bharadwaj’s compositions, particularly the ‘Dhan Te Nan’ song and riff (used as leitmotif) and cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain are the strengths of ‘Kaminey’. But nothing holds the film together stronger than the performances by actors.

We haven’t seen Shahid Kapur act as good as he does in ‘Kaminey’. Not only does he master the speech defects, he puts on a different body language for the twin characters. It’s most apparent in a scene where the two brothers Guddu and Charlie have a fight. Priyanka Chopra too internalizes her character of a feisty, love-struck Maharashtrian girl impeccably. Note her in a scene where she squabbles with Shahid at the beginning of the film.



It’s hard to believe that no filmmaker in Bollywood yet utilized the talent of writer-painter-actor Amole Gupte (the writer and creative director of Taare Zameen Par). As a diabetic goon with political ambition, Gupte delivers the finest performance in the film. Don’t miss the mock gunplay between Gupte and the promising newcomer Chandan Roy (who plays Shahid’s sidekick) before one of them guns down the other at the start of the second half.

Bharadwaj has conceived many such interesting sequences in ‘Kaminey’. Take for instance that scene when Shahid and his partners in crime realize that the car they’ve stolen to get away from their chasers is actually a police car. Or the finale when all the baddies descend on the same hot spot and the guns are drawn. What follows is a funny bargain to divide the drug money.

Such gems apart, there are some weak links as well in ‘Kaminey’. The flashback story about the past of Guddu and Charlie and revealing why they hate each other is just not convincing. Or take that scene when an emotional Guddu begins to tell Sweety about his childhood crush. It’s embarrassingly cheesy.

Don’t go expecting the moon from ‘Kaminey’. It’s a bit violent, a bit funny, a bit emotional film that leaves you entertained but not wiser.

Rating: ****

Review by: Naresh Kumar Deoshi

Imtiaz Ali' s - Love Aaj Kal

Movie Review: Love Aaj Kal
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Neetu Singh, Rishi Kapoor, Rahul Khanna, Vir Das
Cinematographer: N. Nataraja Subramaniam
Publicity Designer: Himanshu Nanda, Rahul Nanda
Story Writer: Imtiaz Ali
Costume Designer: Anaita Shroff Adajania, Dolly Ahluwalia
Sound Designer: Dilip Subramaniam
Music Director: Pritam
Playback Singer: Neeraj Shridhar, Sunidhi Chauhan, Mohit Chauhan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Kay Kay
Background Sound: Salim Merchant, Sulaiman Merchant
Lyricist: Irshad Kamil
Music Company: Eros Music: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Neetu Singh, Rishi Kapoor, Rahul Khanna, Vir Das
Costume Designer: Anaita Shroff Adajania, Dolly Ahluwalia
Producer: Dinesh Vijan, Saif Ali Khan
Banner: Eros International
Director: Imtiaz Ali


It’s the best romantic film to have come out of Bollywood in years

The mighty mysterious love, which has remained unexplained even after tomes of literature has been written about it and tones of celluloid consumed, finds a delicate, touching expression in director Imtiaz Ali’s film Love Aaj Kal. Through two parallel love stories, both equally moving and relatable, the movie tells its audience that Love Aaj is no different from Love Kal (yesterday) even though the way of expressing it for today’s i-pod generation may be different from that of the lovers of yore when just the meeting of eyes or passing of a smile could throb a heart more than a rocking bed on a one-night stand.

London 2009. Jai (Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (Deepika Padukone) click on their very first meeting in a pub and end up sharing their first kiss the same night. They don’t realize they are a couple until their friends point it out to them. And just when it seems they would walk hand-in-hand into the sunset, rears its head the modern-day monster that has doomed many love stories - Career! He has an American dream of clinching a job in Golden Gate, San Francisco, while she wants to make a career out of restoring the old monuments of Delhi. Clearly, their ways are separate, and, like any ‘practical’ couple, they mutually decide to split and even throw a break-up party.

But, can the matters of heart be resolved so easily? Is it so easy to snap the heart strings and move on?

The answer is given through the love story of a London restaurateur (Rishi Kapoor).

Delhi 1965. Veer Singh (Saif, again) is left thunderstruck when he first sees Harleen (a beautiful newcomer whose name has strangely been withheld). It’s a love mostly expressed in stares and suppressed smiles. But then, she goes away to Calcutta, leaving Veer lifeless, until he listens to his heart, and, driven by his love, overcomes the many odds piled up against him, to make Harleen his.

But will Jai go the Veer way?

Imtiaz Ali has crafted the film superbly by not just juxtapositioning the love stories of Jai and Veer but also following a non-linear route to tell each story. The dots are connected in an aesthetically beautiful way to give ‘Love Aaj Kal’ the structure of a complex origami that makes complete sense when all its segments come together to unravel a pretty design. And a fat share of credit for this should go to the editor, Aarti Bajaj, who does an incredibly good job.

To top it, Saif Ali Khan gives the best performance of his career. Unlike the painful performances we saw in Tashan and Race, here’s a Saif who is subtle, polished and spot on in his dual portrayal of Jai and Veer. There’s a scene where Saif is nonchalantly telling Rishi Kapoor that Deepika, from whom he has split, will move on in life, have new friends and new relationships. It’s quite a sight to see how his expression and tone changes from being dismissive to painfully sad by the end of the same long dialogue. It’s the stuff only seasoned actors can pull off.

Deepika Padukone is an image of grace in a role that requires her to talk more through the eyes than words. She doesn’t ham, nor is there any apparent effort on her part to underplay her character. Rishi Kapoor is good, but a special mention ought to be made of the girl who plays Harleen. She’s a pretty, delicate damsel who gets just two-three dialogues in the film but still leaves her image in your mind. Rahul Khanna, playing the new man in Deepika’s life, has a very small part which he plays convincingly.

Imtiaz Ali, whose forte is love stories, surpasses his previous two films Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met to touch a new high in ‘Love Aaj Kal’. The movie not just has an interesting structure and form, but a throbbing soul that reaches out to a viewer and sucks him/her in. Yes, there are a few sequences in the second half when the film slows down, particularly when Saif begins to date the blonde bombshell (Florence Brudenell-Bruce). But these hitches are too minor when compared to the impressive picture put together by Imtiaz.

Sprinkled throughout with light humour and songs that are hummable (thanks to Pritam), ‘Love Aaj Kal’ is a heady love potion strongly recommended to both the believers and non-believers of the ‘Heer-Ranjha’, ‘Romeo-Juliet’ kind of ‘janam janam ka saath’ stories.

Go watch it. You won’t be disappointed. Rather, you’d be left wanting to fall in love, if you are already not in it, that is.

Rating: ***1/2

New York - New Bollywood Movie

Movie: New-York

Cast: John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan

Writer: Aditya ChopraCostume Designer: Rocky S.

Director: Kabir Khan

Producer: Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra

Banner: Yash Raj Films

Singer: Kay Kay, Sunidhi Chauhan, Mohit Chauhan, Pankaj Awasthi

A star-spangled film that starts off well, builds the plot nicely, but goes completely hay wire in the second half, New York is long, tiresome, but well intentioned.



It opens with the distinctly unique skyline of New York, with the twin towers ominously missing. The SWAT team sweats overtime to round off a terror suspect, Omar ( Neil Nitin Mukesh ), who finds himself in the FBI net after arms and ammunition is found from the trunk of a car owned by him. FBI agent Roshan ( Irrfan Khan ) grills Omar and wrings out all info about Sam ( John Abraham ), Omar’s friend, who the FBI agent claims, is running a sleeper terrorist cell that could strike America anytime.



As Omar narrates the story of his friendship and unrequited love with Sam and Maya ( Katrina Kaif ) we are flashbacked to the year 1999 and on to the campus of New York State University where the three friends (studying god knows what!) bond over chess and American football. They seem like the happiest bunch of buddies in the world until the clock ticks to that fateful day, 9/11, 2001, when, just like the twin towers of WTC, their world comes crashing down.



Back to the present, Roshan, the FBI agent, convinces Omar to go back to Sam and Maya – who are now married and have a cute, long-haired kid – and infiltrate Sam’s sleeper cell as an undercover FBI operative.



Omar, who is sure that his friend Sam could never be a terrorist, takes up the offer, not so much to expose Sam’s truth but prove his (Sam’s) innocence. Little did he realize that his buddy Sam or Sameer Sheikh has a past he doesn’t know of!



From then on, director Kabir Khan tries to delineate the insidious process of the making of a terrorist – how a security-obsessed nation, in its bid to prevent terrorism, ends up creating new terrorists. Alongside it unravels the dilemma of Omar who can’t betray his friend but is willy-nilly drawn to prevent him from committing any terrorist act.


It all boils down to a climax so shoddily imagined and executed that you cease to relate to any of the characters. And the end, which should have ideally given you goose bumps only leaves you itching to get out of the theatre, the heat outside notwithstanding.



Irrfan Khan and Neil Nitin Mukesh are the two towers of ‘New York’. Irrfan, despite being given a few preachy sequences (in which he talks about introspection within the Muslim community and also the new America which is more accepting) lives up to his mettle, while Neil holds the film together with an earnest and sincere performance punctuated with flashes of brilliance.



It’s John, all butt and biceps, who’s the weak link. I know girls love him but John fails to internalize his character of a seething, simmering man who’s been done wrong. Katrina Kaif takes a leap from being all beauty and no talent. Now, she can cry convincingly. A special mention must be made of actor Nawazuddin who plays John’s assistant named Zilgai, an emotional wreck haunted by the torture he underwent under police detention.


Its flaws apart, ‘New York’ does have some very nicely executed sequences. One such is when Zilgai is cornered by cops atop the terrace of a high rise and decides to jump to death. In his final moment as he remembers his god, the last thing he sees is a church in a distance. Or that sequence when John goes to the downtown Brooklyn market with a codeword to contact a sleeper cell. The torture sequences (filmed on a nude John) are more shocking because of their content than execution.



The film’s music is pretty good and unlike other Bollywood flicks it doesn’t impede the story’s progression. The cinematography is nice but the director overdoes the slow-motion shots.



Saddled with a plot-holed script and poor performances from half of its starcast, ‘New York’ falls short of expectations. Watch it if you have three hours to kill.


Rating: **1/2

Movie Trailer

99 Bollywood movie review

Cast :Vinod Khanna, Kunal Khemu, Soha Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Mahesh Manjrekar, Simone Singh, Cyrus Broacha




Nothing is more frustrating than being stuck on 99, where only one run can bring you glory or the lack of it can make all your hard work seem like a waste. The Laurel and Hardy of this Friday’s release 99 are stuck in a similar situation. The world is their playing field, and con is their game.



The year is 1999. Sachin ( Kunal Khemu ) and Zaramud ( Cyrus Broacha ) are the Laurel and Hardy of our story. They make fake SIM cards and are sucked into a bigger mess when they steal and crash a gangster’s Mercedes while running away from cops. To save their skin, the duo are forced to work for the ganglord AGM ( Mahesh Manjrekar ), who is a bookie and has a long list of people to recover his money from. In the list is Rahul ( Boman Irani ), a gambling addict always looking for ‘signs’ and ‘signals’ as favourable or unfavourable omens to bet or gamble his money, if he has any.

AGM



sends Laurel and Hardy to Delhi to recover money from Rahul. Before the duo go about their dirty job, Laurel loses his heart to Pooja ( Soha Ali Khan ). Not just this, the two crooks also end up losing the money they forcibly recover from Rahul. Thereafter, begins a mad chase, where Laurel faces robust goons with fists and kicks, while the barrel of a Hardy spends most of his time in toilet, unloading himself of the butter chicken of previous night.





The director duo of Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. must be lauded for making a refreshingly delightful film with ample funny moments. The humour in the film – expressed in situations and crispy dialogues – is not of the kind we see in typical Bollywood no-brainers. At times it’s witty, at times pure slapstick. Note that sequence about Delhi being a strange city where girls are either named Pooja or Neha, where it’s cold in March, where spoiled brats play loud music in cars, and where everyone is out to steal your stuff. All these things actually transpire in the unraveling of the plot.



Though the pace of the film slackens at few places, the performances by the cast keeps you hooked for most part of the film. Kunal Khemu is totally at ease playing his character while Cyrus Broacha goes over the top a few times. Boman Irani gets the meatiest role in the film and he slips convincingly into his character of an employee in a forex firm whose wife has left him because of his gambling addiction. Soha Ali Khan has a brief role and she plays it well. Mahesh Manjrekar is a delight to watch.



The most surprising of the lot is an actor named Amit Mistry who plays a pint-sized goon out to recover his money from Rahul. There’s also an impactful cameo by Vinod Khanna , as a cricket match fixer.


The film’s music and cinematography are top grade and not once do they hamper the story’s flow.


With its tight script, fine performances and refreshingly different story, ‘99’ turns out to be a total paisa vasool film not just for its characters but also for audiences.


Do give it a shot.


Rating: ***

Firaaq - Movie Reviews

Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri, Shahana Goswami, Raghuvir Yadav ,Tisca Chopra


Cinematography: Ravi K. Chandran


Editing: Sreekar Prasad


Art Direction: Gautam Sen


Screenplay: Nandita Das, Shuchi Kothari


Story Writer: Nandita Das, Shuchi Kothari


Director: Nandita Das

Shocking, disturbing and thought-provoking, Nandita Das’s movie Firaaq touches a raw nerve.


Admittedly a work of fiction claimed to be inspired from thousands of true stories, ‘Firaaq’ (meaning quest, or separation) mirrors the gruesome reality of the Gujarat riots in which many Muslims and Hindus were slaughtered.


‘Firaaq’




provides us a peek into the after effects of the riots by taking us into the minds of the characters that populate its parallel stories. The gravity of the subject is established in the opening reel when a truckload of dead bodies are dumped into a mass grave.



A homeless boy Mohsin wanders the streets in search of his Abu. A middle-class housewife Aarti ( Deepti Naval ) battles her guilt of having shut the door on a desperate Muslim woman pleading for life. A Muslim-Hindu couple, Sameer and Anu, ( Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra ) grapple with the altered reality of their surroundings and plan to leave the city. A group of Muslim men gang up to take revenge. An ageing musician Khan Saheb ( Naseeruddin Shah ) is unable to comprehend the senseless violence and massacre. Two sahelis, Munira and Jyoti ( Shahana Goswami and Amruta Subhash) manage to stick together in the environment of communal hate and suspicion.


With calculated restraint, sensitivity and subtlety, ‘Firaaq’ tells the story of these characters in a bid to rattle the conscience of the viewers and make them realize the horrendous crimes that took place in the Gujarat of 2002.



However, it needs to be said that some might find the film one-sided because it repeatedly portrays the victimization of Muslims – be it a cop telling a Sameer Shaikh (Sanjay Suri) to buzz off to Pakistan, or a local resident dropping a heavy stone slab on a man’s head just because he is a Muslim.



But all in all, Nandita Das does a fairly decent job of telling a multi-layered story with seamless clarity. The performances are top notch, particularly by Deepti Naval, Shahana Goswami, Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal , who plays a middle-class, anti-Muslim Gujarati trying to cover up the rape committed by his young brother.



Looking beyond the film’s theme, ‘Firaaq’ is a cinematic gem with excellent cinematography (Ravi Chandran), well-penned screenplay (Nandita and Shuchi Kothari) and evocative background score.



Despite its somewhat narrow perspective, it’s a film made with conscience and noble intention, as reflected in a scene in which Raghuvir Yadav (a domestic help) tells Naseer that Muslims are being killed. Naseer replies: “Insaan Insaan ko maar raha hai, gham toh iss baat ka hai. A statement that entreats us to see humans beyond their religions, it pretty much encapsulates the soul of ‘Firaaq’.


Definitely worth a watch.


Rating: ****

Gulaal

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastava, Piyush Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan


Producer: Zee Limelight


Director: Anurag Kashyap


Music Director: Piyush Mishra


Lyricist: Piyush Mishra


Cinematographer: Rajeev Ravi


Editor: Aarti Bajaj


Art Director: Wasiq Khan


Story: Anurag Kashyap, Raja Chaudhary,Aparna Chaturvedi


Stories about a simple man’s anger and outburst against the corrupt, corroding system have been seen and forgotten by the dozen, and Anurag Kashyap’s angst-ridden Gulaal turns out to be just a statistical addition to the list.



True, the movie is hard-hitting and a telling statement on the degeneration in the political structure both at the micro level of student politics and the macro level of power-hungry, tyrannical megalomaniacs who stop at nothing to realize their political ambitions. It starts off pretty well as Anurag Kashyap introduces the characters, and it develops momentum as the murky motives are unveiled. The movie, however, becomes a hodgepodge in the second half as it climaxes to a blood curdling crescendo all because of a one-sided love story gone horribly wrong.
Dilip




Singh ( Raj Singh Chaudhary ), a simple, soft-spoken nerd comes to Rajasthan to study law but gets unwittingly sucked into the vortex of student politics after his roommate Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh), a candidate contesting college elections, is bumped off.



Dukey Bana ( Kay Kay Menon ), an influential figure who dreams of wedging out a splinter Rajputana state, takes Dilip under his wing and makes him win the post of General Secretary through rigged elections.


Dilip’s rival in the elections, Kiran (Ayesha Mohan), and her cunning brother (Aditya Shrivastava) are unable to digest their defeat. Kiran lures Dilip with love and sex. And he – like any able man in his right senses – succumbs to the temptation. But gradually the dirty, murky political game is revealed to Dilip as he finds Kiran take over political powers from him and dump him and move on to play her amorous tricks on the bigger shark – Dukey Bana.



Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned. Dilip, the simple, gullible, bespectacled wimp who was ragged into spending days naked inside a room with a female professor ( Jesse Randhawa ) when he joined the college, now takes to the gun after realizing that he’s been used as just a pawn in the bigger game.



‘Gulaal’ is essentially a character driven story that seems to get too verbose at places. The dialogues are expectedly sprinkled with expletives because the director apparently wanted them to sound ‘real’. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi is superb. Music and lyrics by Piyush Mishra are intriguing.


If there’s anything truly worth watching in ‘Gulaal’ it’s the performances by the ensemble of talented actors from Kay Kay Menon as the devious Dukey Bana to Deepak Dobriyal as his assistant or Mahi Gill as his mistress.


Newcomer Raj Singh Chaudhary has an unassuming persona and convincingly portrays the inner transformation of his character. Ayesha Mohan and Aditya Shrivastava as the brother sister duo are terrific in their individual performances.



All said, ‘Gulaal’ is a seething, simmering, but tortuously predictable tale of all that’s rotten in the system. All through the movie you get an uncanny feeling that the director has pooled all his anger, angst and cynicism against the system and spewed it on the screen to be smacked at the faces of hapless viewers in the form of ‘Gulaal’.


Frankly, there’re better things to do with your time and money than have a taste of someone else’s angst.

By Nikhil Kumar

Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com