Whats Your stamina??

Ashutosh Gowarikar is known to make movies with mammoth running times. Lagaan, Swades and Jodha Akbar were all well above 3 hrs of running time. Whats your Raashee is no different. It has a humongous running time of 210 minutes which is a killer blow to the movie.

Some may believe that the previous movies absolutely needed all the content and hence were justified to be that long. Unfortunately WYR doesn't fall into the same category. It can easily be cut short by a good 30-35 minutes which could have helped the film's cause so much more. Don't get me wrong I loved the movie but the length does hamper the final impact of the movie. In a day and age when people opt for Twenty20 over ODIs because you get entertained in a short span of time, you just have to respect the audience's patience.

Yogesh Patel(Harman.. oops sorry "Hurman" Baweja) is an NRI who comes down to India and his family decides to get him married off so that he inherits his grandfather's wealth according to his will. A lot of pressure is put on Yogesh as it will solve the family's monetary problems. Finally Yogesh gives in and decides to marry but has a condition. He will meet only 1 girl from each zodiac sign and then take his decision.

So he meets one girl after the other (different characters played by Priyanka) which are in essence 12 different short stories with one common factor, Yogesh.

Every story has a mandatory song in it, which I believe is the BIGGEST mistake. For some of the girls you instantly know that she is going to be rejected but we have to sit through a 5 minute song which is totally hampering the movie's flow, tempo and ofcourse length. I can easily count up to 6 songs which could have been either cut short or left out which alone reduces the movie by 25-30 minutes.

Now the good part. The movie is full of fall of the seat humor. It has amazing one liners and punch lines. I remember laughing off my seat whenever I got to see the movie in between the songs. It has some touchy feely moments too which were executed pretty well. The songs which do matter are very well shot. Especially the concept of the recap song was very creative.

Personally, I loved the music. Especially 4-5 songs are just too good. But when you see them in the context of the movie you are disappointed coz most of them were not needed in the movie. None the less hats off to Suhail Sen for striking gold in his first outing. Rahman's shoes were not small ones to fill in.

This movie belongs to Priyanka Chopra and is another feather in her already amazing crown of performances. What a brilliant job she does! The walk, the talk, the posture, the small small mannerisms, the smile, the anger, the puzzled look. I can just go on and on. I was simply awed by her performance. I take back my statement of calling her today's Kajol. She is right there at the top beside Kajol in the list of amazing actresses of all time.
Hurman put in a very sincere effort. I couldnt help it but find a similarity to Hrithik though, which seriously works against him. All the other character artistes were good too but they have appeared in almost all Gowarikar movies and you cant help but imagine them as the previous characters that they have played. For e.g. whenever Yogesh's grandpa came on screen I couldn't help but think of the farmer in swades saying "Jo Kabhi nahi jaati.. ussi ko jaati kehte hai".

Ashutosh does it again and shows why he is a brilliant director. If only he can take it in his stride to chop down his movies it would work wonders according to me. I hope he takes the feedback and re-releases a lite version of this movie with 30-40 mins of less playing time.

Rating: A very watchable and lovable movie (minus the songs)

Those that don't have the stamina to watch a movie for 210 minutes, better wait for the dvd to be able to FF the songs.

Dil Bole (Rani Mukherji)

When I saw the promos of Dil Bole Haddippa for the first time during the screening of Kambakht Ishq, they somehow did not excite me enough. I neglected the feeling as I was super excited to see Kambakht Ishq that time. But that feeling came back to me when I saw the trailer the next time and the songs did not help the movie's cause either. Probably if I wasn't a big Rani Mukherji fan I would have given this movie a miss and wouldn't be writing this blog entry.

Is it just me or is every one feeling overdosed by the punjabi look n feel in yash raj movies? It seems like they have built a set and have been using it for movies for the past 3-4 years. Seriously it feels like the producers just took out SRK out and put Rani in. Rani's house in the movie is so reminiscent of SRK's house in Veer Zaara and there are umpteen such similarities in the movie. Not to mention the movie gets so cheesy in portions that I must have gained 2-3 kilos only by watching this movie.

Veera (Rani) is a young girl who is a cricket fanatic like the 90% population in India is. She is a cut above the rest because not only does she aspires to play cricket in the Indian team one day, but she is darn good at it.

Every year on independence day a local team from Amritsar play with a local team from Lahore for the "Aman" cup. For a string of 7 years India has been losing this cup. The team's manager tricks his son, Rohan (Shahid) into playing for the Aman cup. Rohan, by the way, is a rising English county player. Rohan decides to build a new team and calls for selection drills.

Veera gets super excited and goes for the selection but is driven away since she is a girl and this was a men's cricket team selection. They killed Veera's chances but not her spirit. Veera comes back, but this time dressed as a young sardar, Veer. Ultimately she gets selected and plays for the team. I guess everyone knows whether Veera will help her team win or not.

The main match is a major disappointment. Director Anurag Singh had so many references from the modern film era to use to his advantage. There was Lagaan, Yash Raj's own Chak de! India. Hell even the match in the film "Victory" was better. Anurag Singh is a big let down in this area.

The film has its moments though. The script had its heart in the right place of showing girls fighting for equality among men. But the execution fails to keep the audience engrossed. The length doesn't help either. A major flaw in the script according to me is that all this fight was to show a girl playing in a men's team and in the end she doesn't get to score the century, the guy does, which was odd.

Coming to the performances, this movie is a Rani Mukherji show all the way. What ever the movie is, its only due to Rani. If Veera was good, Veer was as brilliant as it can get. She performs the part with elan. She mastered the mannerisms and style to such perfection. She actually looked like a young 16-17 year old sardar. Simply awesome. Rani also put in a lot of effort in her cricket. Her strokes looked so real. Everything from her stance to her follow through to her fielding was so believable. Everybody else was there to support Rani. Shahid and Anupan Kher were good in their parts.

Music by Pritam has to be his weakest work for a long time now. Not one song felt hummable and were outright boring. Even Sonu Nigam's vocals couldn't save one of the songs.

Director Anurag Singh had directed a movie called Raqueeb which was a much better effort than DBH. He has to pull up his socks if he wants to last in this industry as this is the era of young brilliant directors in bollywood.

Rating: Watch this movie for the brilliance of Rani Mukherji.

You can safely give it a miss and catch it on TV or DVD after a month or so if you are not a Rani Mukherji fan like me :)