Change Your Image
abhikthakur-1
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Sacred Games (2018)
Grotesque story n gratuitous scenes saved by good acting and narration
This is a grotesque fantasy of a privileged upper middle-class Indian-living-abroad bashing up Maharashtrians and Hinduism.
That's about the story. Now coming to the series on screen, while the 2-pronged narration is great, the slow depiction of characters and situations makes for sometimes tedious viewing. May be the multiple directors wanted to increase the rewatchability.
There are lots and lots of violence, sex, nudity and expletives- almost all gratuitous. The directors think it makes them look cool and edgy. For example, there was absolutely no logic of making Cuckoo a transgender. In the novel, she was just a cabaret dancer.
A long story spread over decades and handled by multiple directors can have loopholes and the team hasn't done a great job in covering for them. Multiple directors can also lead to uneven approach- probably the reason the second season was different.
The angle of guruji-bringing apocalypse was completely outlandish. The point of the complete apocalypse is not mentioned in the scriptures of Hinduism. This kind of story is made by those who project their own thinking and fantasies on the people they hate/condescend to.
There is a forced point added on a Muslim being lynched due to a dispute in a cricket match. Really?? Now India is a huge country of 1.4B people and you can easily find both the best and the worst of humanity. But had there been so many evils in the society all in one place, it would have long collapsed, without needing a nuclear device.
Nuclear device is another laughable plot device. The local government may be incompetent and corrupt but there are too many layers of governance, intelligence and law enforcement to let something like this go on unabated.
Acting wise, it is Nawazuddin Siddique's show all the way. He owns the show completely. Despite spouting expletives once every four words. One of my favourite bits of his acting is when he is shown listening to Guruji's discourse- he truly looks convinced and smitten!
Pankaj Tripathi is great as Guruji- he did what was expected of him. Kalki is competent. Radhika Apte looked too waifish to be believable. Archana Subhash was great as a battle-worn intelligence operative.
Saif Ali Khan was good but unidimensional, with a similar expression on his face throughout the seasons. Rest of the supporting cast are great- Parulkar (Neeraj Kobi), Suleiman Isa (Saurabh Sachdeva), Cuckoo (Kubra Sait), Bhonsle (a stereotyped but still good Girish Kulkarni), Bunty (Jatin Sarna), Katekar (Jitendra Joshi), Kanta bai (Shalini Vatsa) and Jojo (Surveen Chawla). Aamir Bashir is competent. But Samir Kochhar is a better anchor than an actor! Luke Kenny is good as the assassin Malcolm Mourad but his character is more plot device than character.
All in all, watchable junk.
Sherni (2021)
Waste of talent and the medium
This movie has a basic problem- it has no story. To be more accurately, it only has a premise of a story. And it stays that way only. The climax never arrives and the movie hardly gets any kind of conclusion whatsoever.
But mostly you will feel sorry for (while suppressing your laughter) at Vidya Balan- what was she doing here?
This could have been a great documentary. It does have great cinematography. You will feel the atmosphere and the tension on the air. But eventually all that will lead to a bigger disappointment. Can't these new age directors focus on the most elemental thing in a movie- to tell a story?
Akhiyon Se Goli Maare (2002)
Timepass!
You will like this movie- if you watch it as a nonsensical over the top comedy!
Govinda had probably began to lose his touch a bit around this time. This movie was among the several flops he had delivered in those couple of years.
However, if you watch the movie now, he is just being the zany, crazy spontaneous self. His act as "Bhopadiya dada" (what a name!) is stuff of legends. It can't be scripted. It is pure ad-libbing!
Raveena is having fun. She is graceful and looks good overall and is sincere wherever the plot demands it.
Kader Khan is good form is both the roles. Shakti Kapoor and Johny Lever play their usual crazy parts. But it is Razzak Khan as 'Faiyyaz Takkar pahalwan' who takes the spotlight! He specialized in crazy cameos and this one, especially in the company of Govinda, stood out!
Overall, a good movie for a lazy afternoon/evening!
Aamir (2008)
Aamir- an original experiment!
No Hindi movie in recent memory had a screenplay and visuals like that of Aamir, a movie with débutant director Raj Kumar Gupta and débutant lead actor Rajeev Khandelval, along with the débutant music composer and cinematographer.
Also, for the first ever time the dingy by lanes in the dirtiest parts of the dreamy film city Bombay (Mumbai) have been captured on the big screen. If Bluffmaster captured Mumbai in all its splendour, Aamir catches the city off guard, showing things no one ever dared to think about, let alone show.
Imagery is central to the entire idea of the movie Aamir. Once when the protagonist bumps into a pole right in the middle of the narrow lane in which he was chasing his bag snatchers, the poster towards the left announces "a gift for you". Similarly there is a TV visual in Aamir's room in the lodge which is showing a familiar discovery/animal planet video of a leopard chasing its prey, and the one where the mafia don is casually playing with a monkey faced puppet while talking on phone, prodding and knocking the toy whenever it gets stuck.
Another interesting theme is the portrait shots of quaint characters on the street and in the surroundings. Normally such visuals are reserved for the climax or some central (normally disturbing) incident in a movie. Over here, the entire film is peppered with such portraiture.
Amidst all these settings and scenarios is the taut, tough story that grips you almost from the word go and never lets it hold slacken even once. People may ask, why catch a stranger, why not some expert hand? Well I guess that strangers entail lesser risks of getting caught. Even if Aamir would have been captured, it would have been him only who faced the music. By the time the authorities figure out, the mafia don would be conveniently out of the country, having eliminated as much evidence as possible. An interesting thing is that barring Aamir and his family, barely anyone else has a name. Everyone is unknown; the area alien, the voices threatening and the looks menacing.
Rajeev Khandelval surely impresses in his maiden effort (I don't watch TV serials so haven't seen him there). However, his role, due to the tautness of the screenplay, is unidimensional. It will take him a few more movies to fully figure out his potential and/or limitations.
The Reader (2008)
Complex!
The Reader is quite a complex movie. One can call it a romantic-drama but there are other complexities that make an interpretation of this work difficult.
At the heart of these complexities is the protagonist Hanna Schmitz played by Kate Winslet. She lives in her own world and own interpretations of things around her. She has a secret which she has managed to hide throughout her professional career. This secret affects a lot of things- including her romantic liaisons and her ignoring inhuman and dastardly ideologies and practices.
A few other undertones are also present. Notably, the fact the people get attracted to those who seem to have what they themselves cannot have. This possibly explains 36 year old Hanna's affair with the 15 year Michael, a student who can read! Although this decision, along with the other decisions she takes in her life, isn't the best one- the poor introverted lad remains pained for the rest of his life.
Perhaps that is what this fast paced and nicely edited movie intends to convey- that while this character is indeed flawed; but so are life's most general characters. This possibly explains the collective madness people in different times and different places seem to go through. Although such characters may not deserve sympathy per se, they still deserve it simply by virtue of their being human beings. Milgram experiment and 'Banality of Evil' also point in the same direction.
And for the actors, it is actually the 18 year old David Kross, playing Kate Winslet's young lover Michael Berg, who steals the show and impresses one the most. Incidentally, Kross looks a cross between Keaneu Reeves and Heath Ledger. As for Kate Winslet, I'm not sure what the various judges saw in her performance(pun intended!) to hand over so many awards! I saw the move only once- may be I missed something...
Game (2011)
Slick, Stylish But Poorly Scripted
'Game' is slick and stylish. The visuals are unusual (Greece, Turkey et al) and cinematography impressive. The only problem is it tries too hard and doesn't have the goods to back up its efforts.
The biggest shock is the character of Boman Irani- is he the prime ministerial candidate of, did I hear it correctly, Thailand? And that too with a shady past? The tone of the movie is one of seriousness- if that is the case then people would expect you to get such little details right.
Another problem is poor casting. Abhishek Bachchan sleepwalks throughout the movie. There is a difference between acting cool and being lazy. He needs to work much, much harder. Sarah Jane Dias is simply horribly cast- one needed a bewitching persona to excel in such a role. Kangna Ranaut would have been better in Sarah's role- and ironically, vice versa is also true!
The director and scriptwriter fail on multiple fronts. There is little surprise and only a handful of suspense for the viewer. The CID series does a better job of maintaining suspense and entertaining the audience, even if at a basic level.
Overall, a case of promising big, deliver small- and this when I watched it on DVD!
Utsav (1984)
Artistically brilliant- slightly patchy narration
I saw this movie yesterday and felt that the roles of Amjad Khan were underdeveloped, both as the narrator and as Vatsyayana. He is introduced as narrator but does not do anything after that. He then comes up as Vatsyayana but is lost after a few scene. I thought Vatsyayana could have been a recurring motif for the movie- just to highlight the eroticism of the times in the Gupta age, called the Golden Age of India.
Acting wise, Rekha is superb, nearly phenomenal! Debutant Shekhar Suman displays the nervousness of a now-poor man who is being seduced by a famous and rich courtesan- but he lacks screen presence, an obvious side effect. As a rookie and that too in front of Rekha, he would naturally have been nervous! The most curious case was that of Shashi Kapoor's Sansthanak- a role he would never have played anywhere else and something that Akhilendra Mishra's (aka Kroor Singh of Chandrakanta) of today would feel more comfortable playing! Still his acting needs to be commended- I noticed only really late that this was SHASHI KAPOOR!
Overall, the feeling was that while it was good, it could have been even better.