Athithi : Tum Kab Jaoge

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 5th Mar, 2010
Time : 150 minutes
Director & Writer : Ashwn Dheer; Music : Pritam
Starring : Ajay Devgn, Konkona Sen Sharma, Paresh Rawal

This is a one joke movie and like any joke, the laughs start to wear thin after a while and when the joke is repeated too often. There are some nice moments, some genuinely funny stuff, but too little and too far apart.


Ajay Devgn and Konkona have never had guests of the staying variety at their home. Their son doesn’t even know what guest means. Into their life walks in Paresh Rawal. The relationship between him and Ajay is distant at best, but he walks in and turns their life upside down. Koko and Ajay have to move out of their room so that he can have the AC, he wakes them up by gargling loudly early morning, he insists on full meals, cooked by her (and only after she has a bath), he farts copiously, causes problems in Ajay’s work, ruins the relationship between Koko’s boss and her. In short he’s their worst nightmare. What will happen next ?

The film never really builds momentum of any sort, going sentimental at times and comic at others. The same jokes are repeated ad nauseum. It just never really rises above mediocrity.

What I did like was the small part about culture, the relationship shown between Paresh and the kid, where Paresh imparts to him some knowledge about our scriptures, deities, heritage, rituals etc. In todays nuclear family age, our culture is probably the biggest casualty and kids don’t get enough of their grandparents and vice versa. I wish there was more of this in the film.


There are some funny moments – Paresh’s aarti is set to a v familiar non-devotional tune, his way of tipping people, the conversation between the police officer and Ajay / Koko about guests were all enjoyable but not enough to sustain a two and a half hour film.

They were trying to sell the film as being Hrishikesh Mukherjee-esque. Nice try but no cigar….

London Dreams

Rating : 5/10
Release Date : 30th Oct, 2009
Time : ~180 minutes
Director : Vipul Amrutlal Shah; Writer : Suresh Nair & Ritesh Shah; Music : Shankar – Ehsaan - Loy
Starring : Ajay Devgn, Salman Khan, Asin, Ranvijay, Aditya Roy Kapur, Manoj Pahwa
Didn’t quite know what to make of this one. Interesting premise – that of a serious guy who aspires to be a musician, works towards it all his life but then finds naturally talented, happy go lucky friend coming and usurping his band / fame and even girl (Asin) – is partially undone by v weak ending and a minor descent into the dark side which involves self-flagellation and drugs…


London Dreams is nicely set up by two kids who act naturally and look their parts. Ajay’s family is strictly against music and beat him to stay away from it, while Salman’s chases him to take it up. Ajay is taken to London by a relative after the death of his father but when he realises the same antipathy towards music, he makes a dash for it and starts to live on his own (as an aside, the ‘dash’ takes him from LHR to canary wharf…he clearly missed a career in athletics and maybe his relatives wouldn’t have been so upset about this one ?). As they grow, Ajay’s character becomes a bit too intense and broody while Salman’s retains fun and spontaneity. In fact the highlight of the film was Salman’s plane ride to London and the best parts involved him (I cant believe I’m saying this but its true).

The camera angles bring out the vibrancy of Punjab and London quite well. For a musical though, the quality of songs was quite uneven. Khanabadosh and Man ko Ati Bhavey were very nice, very well picturised but the others are merely indistinguishable background stuff.


Surely there are simpler ways to deal with the situation Ajay faced other than the route he chose ? Surely then, the ending would be different vs the clichéd one shown ? Surely they could’ve given Asin a slightly meatier role – what did she feel about the whole thing anyways? And equally surely, couldn’t they’ve done away with the various implausibilities shown in the film – hushing up a ‘drugs’ case in Amsterdam, being a penniless kid on the streets of London not knowing English being ones which I can talk about without giving the story away ?


Thankfully, the director here focuses on the story rather than the clothes, look and accessories of its stars. So brownie points for that. He makes the characters behave consistently through the film so brownie points for that too. He makes us laugh with Salman which was a good thing. He tries to make us connect with Ajay but then, maybe due to the way I am, I never connect with such introverted dry personalities. And he presents a soppy, implausible ending which spoils it big time.

Still, not a bad effort and lets rejoice in the good rather than dwell on the bad…

All The Best

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 16th Oct, 2009
Time : 144 minutes
Director : Rohit Shetty; Writer : Robin Bhatt, Yunus Sejawal; Music : Pritam
Starring : Ajay Devgn, Fardeen Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Mugdha Godse, Bipasha Basu, Johnny Lever, Mukesh Tiwari, Ashwini Kalsekar, Sanjay Mishra, Vijay Patkar, Atul Parchure


Its silliness will get to you and make you laugh. The plot is nonsensical, implausible. Half the jokes will not appeal to you. But the other half will, so you’re assured a fairly decent two hours spent, watching the antics of Ajay, Fardeen and Sanjay sparking off each other, while watching the widely assorted supporting cast of Bips, Mugdha (who looked slightly ill at ease), Asrani, Johnny Lever, Atul Parchure and Sanjay Mishra, prance, dance and get beaten


The story is irrelevant so I wont get into it. Lets just say it involves a rich brother, mistaken identities and eccentric villains, tenants, music bands and a car race. The film is actually just a string of assorted gags, jokes and situations. Sample : What is a PhD : Phata Hua Dhol. MBA : Maha Bekaar Aadmi. When someone serving tea asks, ‘kitne chamach ?’, pat comes the reply, ‘bhai, chamach to ek hi lekin cheeni do dena..’…

The male trio here, Ajay, Fardeen and Sanjay are the ones who really carry the movie on their shoulders, reducing all others to necessary extra’s. Ajay’s laconic nature and deadpan expression suits him well as does the Sanjay’s more expressive nature. The antipathy between the two is nicely built up and provides for several of the funnier moments. Fardeen does a good job in his role but is second fiddle to the two seniors.

There are plenty of slapstick moments – you get the ‘dog chasing a guy in boxers’, the ‘man on man moment’ etc but thankfully the bulk of the film relies more on the silly, goofy moments and snappy one liners.


Decent, worth a watch and you’re assured a few laughs…you may try to resist, but the silliness does overcome all stiffness and eventually you join the ride…All the Best…