Movie Review Date Night

You can’t get two more talented comics to star in a movie than Tina Fey and Steve Carell. They exude humor and comic timing from their very pores. Knowing this the anticipation for the laugh-fest that was sure to be their new movie “Date Night” was high. What the film turned out to be is a good movie but not a great one. Or as someone in the audience put it, a delicious meal with some necessary mysterious ingredient left out.The movie concerns a New Jersey couple named Phil and Claire Foster (Carell and Fey). She sells real estate and he acts as a financial planner. They are a loving couple but a boring one. They have a date night once a week that involves going to a local restaurant and eating the same meal over and over. When two of their closest friends (Mark Ruffalo and Kristin Wiig) announce they are splitting up, it is a wake up call for the Fosters.

They decide to go into the city for their “date night” and to eat at one of the town’s most exclusive restaurants. When they find they can’t get a table they impulsively pretend to be a couple whose name is being called. While sitting at the table they are approached by two guys who escort them out of the restaurant and into an alley. There they threaten them if they do not give a “fast drive” back. When they try to argue that it is all a case of mistaken identity the thugs are not buying it.The rest of the movie is spent with the Fosters trying to stay alive and also to get the thugs off their backs. This means gun battles and car chases, as well as a visit to a strip club. Most of the scenes are funny but there are a few dry spots in between the action.

Fey is a little bit brittle in her portrayal of Claire while Carell is all soft and gooey as Phil. Both characterizations are fine but they do not blend with each other. We never see these two as a couple but rather as two funny individuals. If they had managed to become a believable couple the movie would have had more heart.The supporting cast in the film is solid with Mark Wahlberg being outstanding as a former client of Claire’s who tries to help them out. Also good are Mila Kunis and James Franco as the couple the Fosters impersonate. J. B. Smoove is standout hilarious as the cab driver the Fosters hijack.

The film is rated a surprising PG-13. It contains scenes of simulated sex, extensive profanity including multiple uses of the “F” word, and some violence. So parents be warned!
Tina Fey and Steve Carell are funny people in this movie about a hard day’s night for an ordinary couple. Still they are each operating within their own sphere and never cross over to unite as a team. It doesn’t ruin the movie but it does make it less than it should be.

Prem Ka Game Review

Arbaaz Khan gets the seven-year-itch when his wife, Tara Sharma goes to Mysore on family business, with their precocious kid. Can't blame him, since the no-brain neighbour, Madhuri Dixit, literally throws herself on him, with her funny mission of finding love, not marriage.Salman Khan also tries so hard to add some humour to this humourless film. But nothing seems to work. Neither the apology of a plot that tries to preserve the sanctity of marriage amidst extra-marital flings. Nor the plethora of comic actors, headed by Johnny Lever, who ironically make you cringe with their loud, crude, no-laughing-matter acts.

Try figuring out what the filmmaker means when he likens marriage to a public toilet and wives to an internet virus. Maybe Tara Sharma and newcomer Madhuri Bhattarcharya might be able to shed some light on the similes, as they try and keep pace with Arbaaz Khan's wooden antics.

Hum Tum Aur Ghost Review

Story: Fashion photographer Armaan has too many problems at hand. There's a high maintenance girlfriend, Gehna who is the editor of the fashion magazine he works for and a plethora of ghosts who want him to fulfil their wishes, since only he can see and communicate with them. Things get even more complicated when Gehna begins to hate the other worldy intrusions and actually doubts her boyfriend's mental health....

Movie Review: Arshad Warsi's debut film as writer and producer has a problem at the onset. It fails to define itself. Is it a comedy, a love story or a supernatural drama? Does it have a point to make, other than entertain?

The first question raises its head because the plot and the tenor of the film ramble too much. Rarely funny, mostly sentimental, the film seems to waste away its comic potential for some drama that doesn't quite engage. While the encounters with the ghosts, headed by Boman Irani, begin in a lighter vein, they suddenly seem to enter touch-feely territory, with Arshad Warsi, the guy who can see dead people, shedding copious tears while bringing together sons and fathers, sons and mothers, husbands and wives. Case in point: Suddenly, out of the blue, you have a little boy ghost running across crowded streets, urging Arshad to save his dying daddy. Hello! Where did he come from; what's his story? They do tell you, but it's too abrupt and makes you wonder why Arshad is weeping his way through a sequence that barely touches you. Again, the mother ghost hunting for her four-year-old son is too soppy and too predictable. The only ghost-ghost ka dost sequence that actually works is the Boman-Arshad track, wherein a dead Boman wants Arshad to set things right for his ill-treated wife (Asavari Joshi). But unfortunately, that's short-lived.

Which brings us to the second question about the relevance of the film. Now that's an important query, because director Kabeer Kaushik and Arshad Warsi have another film to their credit: Seher. A hard-hitting cop story, Seher still lingers in memory as amongst Arshad's best acts, apart from being a no-nonsense expose of the rail mafia in UP. We wouldn't ask this question if Hum Tum aur Ghost worked as a pure comedy or maybe as the other `I see dead people film' (read a supernatural thriller like The Sixth Sense). It doesn't, and all we are left with are a few sequences of fun, followed by long-drawn drama.

When it comes to performances, it's the Arshad-Boman chemistry that crackles and invests the film with sparkle and wit. Dia Mirza too has her moments as the feisty girlfriend while Sandhya Mridul ends up mostly wasted as a sidekick. What's even more disappointing is Shankar-Ehsan-Loy's audio track which fails to throw up a single hummable tune.

Well Done Abba

The patriarch of parallel cinema returns with a film that suitably showcases why the Indian new wave of the 1970's was such a sterling movement that pioneered a whole new trend of high art and wholesome meaning in desi cinema. Yes, today, when the industry is throwing up another whole new wave of experimental cinema, Shyam Benegal's Well Done Abba emerges as some kind of a benchmark for our current brat pack who want to say so much, so very differently. The film unfolds like a gentle symphony -- never over the top, never hysterical -- even as it ends up as a hard-hitting satire on the entire misnomer of `India Shining', India growing, India evolving, et al.

Benegal's script takes on the entire government machinery -- politicians, engineers, bureaucrats, cops -- for the malaise that seems to be eating away the system. One which precludes the percolation effects of progress and development into the Indian heartland. Driver Arman Ali (Boman Irani) returns to his village, ostensibly to find a groom for his spunky daughter, Muskaan (Minissha Lamba). But to his dismay, the village is in a state of disarray and destitution. The villagers still have to walk miles to get their water and are forced to even refuse a glass of water to the thirsty and weary. What's more, Arman's twin brother, Rehman (Boman, again) and his begum (Ila Arun) are forced to become fugitives, having stolen water from a protected well. In such a parched landscape, Arman comes across a hoarding which tom-toms a government scheme inviting people to dig wells with official loans. This is the beginning of Arman Ali's tryst with all that's absurd, weird, dishonest and ironic in officialdom, whereby schemes like sundry BPL (below poverty line) benefits and NREGA may exist, but in a state of rigor mortis. The welfare bit of welfare pronouncements rarely reach the real people. After having paid off all the percentages and cuts to the long line of officials, Arman is left with a pittance from the loan. Naturally then, the well exists only on false documents and fake photographs and is even reported as stolen in a bizarre sequence of events... Until, a beleaguered Arman decides to take things in his own hands.

The film is a sheer delight, with the events unfolding in a breezy, comic vein which keeps the ribs relentlessly tickling. But what's more alluring are the colourful characters and the multi-layered approach to the problems of a village which becomes a microcosm of the entire nation. Boman Irani's Arman Ali and Rehman Ali are absolutely awesome, Minissha Lamba's Muskaan is a funky firebrand while Ila Arun's slithery, wily, unscrupulous Salma is a veritable scene stealer. The rest of the ensemble cast pitches in like icing on the cake, with Ravi Kissen and Sonali Kulkarni deserving a special mention as the randy newly weds who are wondering whether a silicone job would add more spark to their nocturnal tumbles. Shantanu Moitra's music creates some unforgettable folksy melodies you walk out humming. But eventually, what remains, is the signature of the maestro, Shyam Benegal, over a canvas delivered with finesse and concern.

Savour and sensitize yourself with substance and soul. Watch some Well Done cinema.