Force

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 30th September, 2011
Time : 137 minutes
Director : Nishikant Kamat; Writer : Ritesh Shah (inspired by the Tamil film ‘Kaakha Kaakha’); Music : Harris Jayaraj
Starring : John Abraham, Genelia D’Souza, Vidyut Jamwal, Mohnish Bahl, Sandhya Mridul

I cant remember the last lead pair where both had dimples. It added a touch of cuteness and this along with some light hearted moments distract us from the fact that the story has large gaping holes, some flaws that only movies can permit. Yet, there is enough going on in terms of the action, romance and sheer hunkiness to keep you engrossed and ignore some of the silliness


Beefy, action oriented Narcotics officer, John Abraham & his special squad bust four drug gangs across India. However, a new player, led by the ruthless Vidyut is happy then to takeover and rake in the moolah. Things get personal when his brother is killed by John’s team, Vidyut being of the ‘eent ka jawab pathar’ ilk. In the midst of all this, the shy, quiet, soft to hardly spoken loner, John, meets Genelia. Effervescent, sweet, a member of the ‘have mouth, will talk’ club, she is making rapid inroads in John’s life. At a time when he would rather have no one to care for, no attachment or relationship that can be exploited by the people he chases.


The tiny package, Genelia steals almost steals the show here, amidst the biceps and finely ribbed abs around her. Comparisons between John’s biceps and her waist size would not entirely be out of order. Yet the couple comes across well, John’s reticence and her natural bubbliness looking natural and unrehearsed. John is good as the man on a mission, balancing raw action with anger and calm on different occasions. Vidyut is a find. And the directors made him fight, move in a certain elastic way, which makes you go ‘wow’ when you first see it. It’s the kind of thought that was put in to make Tarzan ‘skateboard’ on trees in the Disney feature and definitely adds an extra dimension.



In a film about muscles, guns and a touch of romance, should we be looking for logic ? It’s a formula that’s worked in India and Hollywood for many years without it. Its normal possibly, therefore, for cops to have a clear shot but take out the henchman instead of the gangleader. Normal for cops, even though there are four of them, not to chase a guy who fired shots in a mall but only the two people who they were tailing. For a cop to land up for a key confrontation with just one gun and one magazine round. And in the face of a real, tangible threat, when denied any protection by the police, not to agree to cover each others back, finding a safe house for their family. However, while they have happened many times before in reel life, I doubt they would in real life.


I loved Kaakha Kaakha. And I enjoyed this film. Raw power and a subtle romance. Its one of those that has certain moments and certain dialogue which stays with you.

Action Replayy

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 5th November, 2010
Time : ~140 minutes
Director & Co-Writer : Vipul Amrutlal Shah; Co-Writers : Aatish Kapadia, Suresh Nair; Music : Pritam
Starring : Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Om Puri, Kirron Kher, Neha Dhupia, Rannvijay Singh, Rajpal Yadav, Sudeepa Singh

Take "Back to The Future" (a classic). Attempt Indianisation via heavy dollops of unwanted emotion, inane dialogue, silly characters, logical flaws and a ludicrous ending. And you get some idea of the angst I feel after having watched this film.


Aditya doesn’t want to get married to his girlfriend as he feels marriage leads to terrible things. Case in point are his constantly bickering parents, Akshay & Aishwarya. However, when on their 35th wedding anniversary they seem to be on the verge of splitting up, he suddenly cannot digest it, he rushes to his girlfriends grandfather’s place, gets into his time machine and travels back in time to try and make sure they love each other when they get married. Sounds illogical ? It is…


All characters are shallow, a horrible stereotype without any depth or likeability. Each person seems to be wearing floral, psychedelic colours and were denims even in existence in India in 1975 ? The shoddy animation in the beginning and slapstick ending ruins the film completely and the rather simple plot is stretched and stretched till our sanity is close to breaking point.


There is too much emphasis on looks, camera angles and clothing rather than the script. In the edit (quite a few jumpy cuts in the film, BTW) they seem to have forgotten simple things like what is it that Aditya tells his parents & grandparents to become friends with them and start living with them ? At the end there is a reference from each of the grandparents, while bidding goodbye to Aditya, saying they will miss him, miss his constant compliments but we never saw him interact with them or compliment them !

Akshay’s transformation was mildly interesting though his overall look was terrible. Aishwarya’s make-up looked odd but still looked good. And while Aditya showed some breeziness, the film struggles as a whole, purely due to script and edit issues. Neha looked good.


The sad part about this film is that with a little more effort, it could’ve been brilliant. In its current form, it is highly irritating…its a shame that 25 years after Back to The Future we werent able to make a film that could even come close...time for me to do some time travel and watch it again !

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…