New York - a serious theme gift wrapped in commercial cinema

For the past 2-3 years YashRaj banner has failed to give the audience any supplement of good movies (barring a few like Chak De India). YashRaj has been accused of time and again repeating the same look n feel, soul lacking movies. New York comes as a survivor for the YashRaj banner.

9/11 and terrorism is a sensitive topic which if not handled properly could become a farce. Writer Sandeep Shrivastav not only handles the topic extremely well but weaves a thriller/ drama story around it beautifully to intrigue the viewer. Hence adding the commercial value to the movie.

Omar, Samir and Maya, played by the 3 main characters Neil, John and Kats, are 3 close friends in college pursuing their Masters from the state university. A love triangle is budding between the three and when John and Kats confess their love for each other, heart-broken Neil decides to
leave town after graduating.

7 years down the line, post 9/11 era, Neil is caught for illegal possession of weapons. His only way out is to work undercover for FBI agent Roshan (Irfan Khan) to unearth a terrorist sleeping cell suspected to be led by Samir Sheikh (John). Neil is bullied into helping the FBI and goes back
into his best friends' lives.

Neil works his way to find out about John's life. Find out whether John is actually a terrorist or if he is being framed into being one by the FBI.

Acting front, Neil Nitin Mukesh is amazing. He has enacted his transition of a newbie in college to an undercover agent very convincingly. John Abraham, simply one word, WOW. Move over people, John has arrived! Katrina is improving vastly, and of course she looks gorgeous as ever.
If only looks and her smile could kill. Irfaan provides some humor in the movie and is good. I still remember seeing him in a soap called 'Banegi Apni Baat' and thinking, "man.. he is gonna make it big one day". Good to see him getting what he deserves.

Music by pritam is good and flows with the movie. The songs don't interrupt the story telling. They gel into the movie superbly. Speculations of Pritam lifting some tunes do exist, but the music nonetheless is good. Kabir Khan who had also written and directed Kabul Express,
does a very good job. A story told very well and extracting brilliant performances from the actors. If only the ending could have been nicer. There were some flaws in the end.

Rating: ***1/2 (Worth watching at least once. Best commercial movie of the year so far)

Let's Dance - feel good film.

A generation inspired by Michael Jackson is making movies dedicated to his style of dance moves. Its a pity he is no longer with us to witness it. Rest in peace Michael! I hope you finally find peace.

Just last week we saw the abysmal launch of Jacky Bhagnani by super producer, Vashu Bhagnani. This week another producer, though less famous, gives his daughter the launch pad for an entry into the "Sapno ki Nagri".

Genrally movies that have a competition in them, song based, dance based, sports based etc. have a feel good factor in them. We have seen many such movies but Aaja Nachle and Rangeela are the closest which come to mind while watching this movie. Although Gayatri Patel is no Madhuri or Urmila as far as acting or looks are concerned, she makes it up with her dancing skills. One disappointing aspect about this movie is that it has a B-gradish look n feel to it which might scare away half its viewers.

Suhani (Gayatri Patel) is a dance school teacher who aspires to feature in a music video some day. She teaches children for free and works night shifts in the bars. Her friend and roomie (played by Shaleen from JTYJN) helps her along the way financially. Along her journey of life she meets some people who influence her life in some way or the other. She meets a guy who falls head over heels for her and turns out to help her whenever she needs it the most. A music video producer who gives her the much needed break also comes along during the course.

Parallely, a story about young kids from the slums being exploited to deliver drugs goes on. The leader of this kid-pack, Aftab (Abhaas Yadav) is an excellent dancer but doesnt put his skills to productive use as he thinks its useless.

The rest of the story is how Suhani battles to get Aftab out of this drug racket and inspire him to join her dancing clique. The climax of this movie is the best part according to me because there is no preachy stuff.

Acting wise, Gayatri is ok. She could probably work on her diction and take some acting classes. Gayatri weaves magic with her legs though. She is an awesome dancer. Glimpses of modelling herself on Madhuri Dixit could be seen. Young Abhaas gave a powerful performance and dances even better than Gayatri. Watch out for this kid. The others were plain ok. Aqib Afsal playing the music video director hams to death.

The music is the soul of this film and is outright brilliant. Vipin Sharma, take a bow. In my view, this is one of the best alnums of the year. Sunidhi Chauhan has rocked in the 3 numbers she was alloted. I highly recommend giving this album atleast one go even if you do not intend to watch the movie. Especially, Sansanati, Taare tod ke la and Jaana Hai.

Debutante director Aarif Sheikh, who has won the national award for best editing (Maqbool) has done a decent job with this movie. With the limited resources that he had in hand, this is the best he could have extracted. Hats off to the choreographer's as well for some mind blowing choreography.

Rating: **1/2 (Go For it if you are a dancing fan..)

Kal Kisne Dekha - maine dekha par kyun dekha

After a hiatus, Bollywood movies return to the screen. Even a movie minutely entertaining would have passed on as a relief. But instead we get tortured by a demon called Kal Kisne Dekha. The cliche of Cliche's is the core part of the story in this movie. Let alone the forced use of "Kal Kisne Dekha hai" in the dialogues. Last year Abbas Tyrewala showed us that even cliches can be lovable to watch if told well. Unfortunately, Vivek Sharma who was impressive in his debut offering Bhoothnath, both as writer and director, fails miserably in this flick. Looks like he was put on a gun point to incorporate dumb scenes in the movie where Jacky can show his prowess.

In the past few months we have seen several movies dealing with the central character being able to see the future. As terrible as AA Dekhen Zara was, it has got a neck to neck competition with Kal Kisne Dekha.

Nihal Singh from Chandigarh, yes thats what Jacky refers to himself throughout the movie, is a simpleton who has big brains for "Science". He used to make "inventions" since he was a kid. He comes down to Mumbai for further education and meets a spoilt rich brat Meesha, played by Vaishali Desai (Manmohan Singh's grand niece). On one hand Nihal impresses his professor, Rishi Kapoor (still in his Luck by chance wig), with his intelligence and difference in thinking while on the other he is unpopular amongst his seniors and gets subject to some lame ragging.

This goes on basically till Nihal shows some of his ability to predict the future as he avoids a series of bomb blasts in the city. The attacks are conspired by a frustrated gang whose intentions for the terrorism are unknown till the end. The gang is led by Marshal (Rahul Dev) who gets a promotion from his last movie, Aa Dekhen Zara. (His name was Captain in ADZ). I have no words left for the nomenclature of villains in such movies. The gang also has another key member who is close to Nihal and is using the latter's ability to the gang's advantage.

Find out how Nihal saves the city from here on. Mind you you will have to go through some needless songs and the worst of action scenes ever witnessed in between.

Acting wise, Jacky is ok considering this is his first movie. He looks like a better version of Uday Chopra and dances well. Jacky should stay as far as possible from action. He cant do action for nuts!! To be fair on Jacky, his character in the movie is inspired straight from Alok Nath (Mr. Goody two shoes). Whenever he opens his mouth only sugar flows out. It gets irritating after a while. Vaishali looks gorgeous but doesn't have much scope to act. Rishi Kapoor is good and the only saving grace. If only they would have worked on his wig. Archana Puran Singh is amazingly funny. Rahul Dev, Satish Shah and Ritiesh Deshmukh are totally wasted.

Music by Sajid-Wajid is good. Especially 3-4 numbers are really nice. Aalam Guzarne ko is my favorite. Its a pleasure to hear Sonu Nigam.

Writer Director Vivek Sharma, disappoints after an interesting Bhoothnath. But again we don't know if his script was modified under any circumstances by a certain producer daddy for his aspiring actor son.

Rating : * (Skip it ! The 1 star is for the music and Rishi Kapoor)