Dangal: review

Watched a movie after a long long time. Many things made this movie mandatory to watch. Its a sports based movie. I am a big fan of this genre. I have, infact, searched all the list of such movies made across the world and have seen atleast 80% of them. Back then, I used to wonder, why no sports based movies are made in India. But, then came "Chak De" and later few more to follow.

Another reasons to watch the movie, were the ratings given by Times of India review ( 4.5) and huge income made by the movie (155 crores) in just 4 days. Every other person, ended up recommending me this movie. 

But, one of the most significant reasons that pushed me to book the ticket was an attempt to try out the offer given on ICICI credit card of one free ticket for one ticket bought using the card. Apparently, it doesn't work. Every time you try to avail this offer, it says " You just missed it. Try again at 3.00, or 7.00, or ----". So, it was a mistake to get a credit card just to get those free tickets. Luckily, an ad about movie floating on my facebook helped me get me a discount of ~ Rs.150. So, some benefit.

So, finally I gave in, and watched this movie yesterday evening. I must say a commendable attempt in making this movie. Its visible, how much efforts have been taken to make this movie. It also makes me wonder, how Aamir Khan ends up making movies on odd stories, but still manages to be the center point aka hero of the movie. 

To talk in more details, I loved the first half of the movie. It seems like a genuine story. A person, failing to fulfil his dream, tries to follow it again using different route, making girls enter the Dangal. The efforts taken makes it feel realistic. The characters of young Geeta and Babita  played by two girls are awesome. It presents their journey to Akhada in a comical way. The song during their practice session is just phenomenal. The making of Geeta and Babita into wrestlers, that makes the major part of first half is really wonderful and worth watching.

In the second half though, the story kind of become an Indian movie. Quite a lot of cinematic liberty seem to have been taken. The story seem to have been exaggerated a bit to portray better sides of Mahavir Phogat over others. Putting some words in the Australian wrestlers mouth also seemed unnecessary. The story of the coach might partly be true. Having myself played Badminton and seen the altogether different work culture of two coaches, makes me believe it. The real wrestling action has been shot in a most authentic way. While watching those bouts, it felt like we are watching some real wrestling match. Somewhere, I felt, the movie ended up with concentrating  on Mahavir Phogat's attention on Geeta only. It kind became a two character story. Babita is completely sidelined. While there were worries and discussion shownabout Geets's matches, Babita's matches were never discussed, although she also won a silver in the same tournament. How did the coach treated Babita, and how did she responded to that treatment (while strongly believing in her father unlike Geeta). Nothing about it.

Ofcourse Aamir has done everything to fit in the character. But somehow, I could not unsee him while watching Mahavir Phogat. In every screen, I found him Aamir Khan only. Incontrast, when I saw "Chak De", I found Kabir Khan there, and not Shahrukh Khan. But that is my perspective.

So, over all recommendation. It is a worth watching movie. Must see and must shown movie. I don't agree with 4.5 star rating of Times though, I will give 3 - 3.5 stars to the movie.Watch it for the love of sports and upliftment it might bring to the situation of Women in India.

You too ! Aamir Khan

Every day, a celebrity appears in news, all because of the statements, they give in public.Most recent inclusion in the list is of the perfectionist, Aamir Khan. He made a statement on behalf of his wife, Kiran, who apparently is worried for the safety of his child. She is scared of even opening newspaper, wondering what new news might hit her. Now, I ended up  wondering about few things.

Every body is asking, whether Aamir asked Kiran, which country she want to shift to?

I, on the other hand, wanted to ask, what was his response to her worry. Did he agree with her views? Whether he discussed with her about probable country worth shifting? or did he try to convince her that her worry is not true picture of India, and India is the best place on earth to live?

What I heard and read doesn't include any statement about his views. What does he believe? Whether he wish to answer the critics or not is different, but he should speak out about his own point of view regarding the issue. ( I am expecting his clarification, only because he has made a controversial statement, and that too with the gun on some one else's shoulder.)

Second thing which arise is, where all did Kiran go to experience intolerance. Can she highlight few incidences which can explain her growing worry. I do not believe, she has any personal experience in this regard. There must be only one source for her to gain information - media.  If one puts on TV and check any news channel, now a days, only one thing is being discussed - Intolerance and how it is growing in last 7-8 months. If a person keeps listening such discussion every now and then, his mind starts getting saturated with that topic and his perception will start changing. Possibly, Kiran fell pray to this stunt and created her own impression that intolerance in India is increasing. One thing for sure is, in a city like Mumbai, you can not really feel intolerance. People here, just have not time for that.

So, this has to be an impression inherited by Kiran and transferred to Aamir, all from media.

The media is the biggest culprit here. They are painting a picture, which probably doesn't exist. Or may be there are few incidences here and there ( which used to happen earlier too),  but by connecting them through some weak link and making a big story out of it, media is just trying to mint money. Check any talk show, and the participants are just blabbering with real stuff discussed. Rather than finding solution on such issues, media is trying to ignite it more and more.

The end result is, people like who otherwise literary ignore such unnecessary chaos, also at some point of the time, gets involved. Just the way, I am writing this post. If the media is not controlled in time, it will end up igniting this issue to such an extent, that unknowingly and unnecessarily it will lead to polarization making this society unstable.

Freedom of speech is a must and necessary, but it doesn't mean freedom of being irresponsible. Today's media is behaving irresponsibly and only for their personal interest. They some how are managing to get even celebrities involved in this stunt.

I urge every body to act responsibly. Do not give statements which leads to controversy and misunderstanding.

Finally, being scared of situation and believing in media hype might happen to any body, but to think of leaving country as a solution to it is simply not acceptable.

Dhoom 3: Should you go for it?

The most awaited movie of the year is here now.

Dhoom-3 released on  20th of December.

People had lots of expectations from this movie for many reasons.

Dhoom series is one of the first, to begin the trend of successful series. It is more famous because of the villain characters rather than the hero Abhishek Bachhan. While John Abraham set the foundations in the first movie, Hrithik Roshan made it large in the second movie of the series. Keeping in line with the newest and best presentation for villains, the third movie in the series included none other than Aamir Khan. It can't get better than this.

Aamir is known for his perfection to the finest details. He creates an expectation even if he is working in a 30 second commercial. So, it is justified that the movie hype would increase multiple times if he is playing a villain's role.

Another interesting character is Katrina Kaif. She would take care of glamour part of the movie. Even here, the series has tried to improvise. Going from Isha Deol in first movie directly to Aishwarya Rai in the second was a big jump. The series needed some one to fill in those shoes. I guess Katrina Kaif would do justice. Not every one would expect her to actually act in the movie, because there hardly will be anything to act for her. The movie is all about bikes, chases and speed. So, probably Katrina Kaif just have to look good and dance around. There might be some emotional touch to her character, but seriously nobody cares.

I wouldn't say anything about Abhishek Bachhan. I don't expect anything from him.Except for movie Yuva, he hasn't really impressed me as an actor.

The weakest link and the one that makes this movie series look bad is Udya Chopra. In spite the case that it is their home production, he should have been cut loose.

Early reviews from the viewers apparently are not that great. Many complaints came:

The movie is a copy of "so and so Hollywood movie".

The action sequence are repetitive. No newness.

It is just a run chase movie. No details of Bank robbery given. Something not expected from Aamir Khan.

Some commented that why Indian Police were called for bank robbery in Chicago. Are they worse than us?

One comment on the movie review on Times of India made me really laugh. I will copy paste a part of it here.

" I thought the target audience for this film are the people who were in deep cryogenic sleep for over a century and never seen a motion picture."

After all reading all this, I am thinking to wait a little  long before I may think of watching the movie. If you have watched it or surely planning  to watch, then do write here, your views about the movie. Lets see, our expectations were right or the reality is different.

3 Idiots

I finally saw 3 Idiots. After reading so many reviews about the movie by some renowned reviewers and listening comments of close by friends, the movie had become an important issue and I was dying to watch this movie. So, the one chance I got to see the movie, I grabbed it.
So much has already been written the movie that it virtually leaves nothing to write. But among these, only one review was “jara hatke”. (http://shobhaade.blogspot.com/2010/01/so-who-is-idiot-huh.html). And I totally agree with the initial lines. “Okay. I saw it. And liked it. Liked. Not loved.”
Why?
I can give many reasons for that.
One foremost reason, may be, I had too high expectations. But of course one must keep high expectations with a movie that earns 300 crores in just 10 days!
Now I will point out what I didn’t liked and what I did.

The name itself is not correct. There were no 3 idiots. The movie was all about one idiot. Right from beginning to the end, there was only one, Aamir Khan.

The ragging session was bit absurd. Only one senior in charge and rarely any other senior in view! Looked like juniors were doing their own ragging sessions as if it was an assignment. Do you remember any senior fellow actually looking at the James bond act of Chatur. I guess nobody. I found it less of ragging session but more of mental asylum scene.



Making juniors remove all their cloth is I guess the favorite ragging method known to the Bollywood director. We saw the same in Munnabhai MBBS. And I know the director of 2 movies is the same person.

Giving shocking treatment to senior to avoid ragging was interesting to watch. But showing the use of same trick in the end was totally unnecessary and I guess it was boasting idea on kids and young guys.

Zip, unzip to define machine might be acceptable in case of a student, but if a faculty repeating the same act in front of whole class is not. I feel the faculty still is a respectable person in India and doesn't do such acts in class. At least I haven't seen it.

I am still looking for a college, institute where any student directly approaches the Dean, Director, Principal just to ask the date of convocation so that his father could book the tickets in time. He should have contacted the office. Poor guy would have lived few more days and completed his project.

Suicide definitely has become a center point of the movie. Talk about 3 suicides (if I haven't missed any else). I guess only Sharman Joshi's mental situation was understandable to take decision of attempting suicide. Rest two, I guess were unnecessary.

Instead of himself trying and giving surprise to “Joy” with his completed project, Rancho should have been shown helping the guy doing his project in some or the other way. If the guy had so much self respect that he committed suicide just because Virus said he won’t graduate and showed no interest in his project, then I guess he would have discouraged more knowing that a junior without much prior knowledge about project could easily finish his project which he failed. I guess he would then have committed suicide in a worse manner then what he did.



I wonder when these people will stop showing Professor, Principal as an eccentric guy.

I am yet to see a Principal who gives introductory lecture in hostel.

I wonder how Virus must be making use of time he spends in loo, when he tries to use the short span of seven and half minutes of nap for doing unnecessary work. Also, I am yet to come across a professor who shaves in his office. Aren't all these eccentric things shown unnecessarily?



The scene between Madhavan and Parikshit Sahani was a repeat of scene from Lage Raho Munnabhai between Jimmy Shergil and again Parikshit Sahani.

The runaway bride was again a copy of Dil Hai ki Manta Nahi. It did fit well there but definitely not here.



I was thinking what they tried to tell by making guys remove their pants every now and then, anywhere. I just hope I don't witness any such act in real life.

I didn't expected the effect of “All is Well” shown in Delivery scene in Aamir Khan's movie. That was the worst of all above points and brought the movie down to normal level from the perfectionist Aamir Khan's standard.

Ranchoddas Chanchad( Is it a right name), is a Gujrati (as Karina Kapoor mentioned) who has pushtaini jamin and haweli in Simla!!!

Is it possible to just drag computer and take it near the pingpong table without any wiring issue. Was it all wireless? I spend nearly an hour arranging the wiring if I wish to shift my computer from one corner to another in the same room.

I guess I can continue with some more points. But instead now I will put some (actually very few as compared to above list) points that make movie worth watching.

The movie has a better story as now a day’s seen in many movies.

The movie is well made and keeps you watching.

It doesn’t lose the grip.

No issues about acting skills. Although movie is all about Aamir Khan, still Sharman Joshi, Madhavan, Karina Kapoor and others have done well in their less important roles.

Most appealing part of the movie was the shooting in Ladakh. That was the welcome treat for the eyes and I tried to store every scene in my mind. Ladakh is beautiful.

Rancho teaching how to teach. A very good point made in a very short time.

I cannot think of any other point in support of the movie at the moment. It definitely is not a movie that should break all the records and earn so heavily as it is doing but it definitely is worth watching once. Moreover the message is very loud and clear if understood well:

Follow your Heart and pursue your dreams