Blog Posts by Rummana Ahmed

John and his leggy beautiesCast:  John Abraham, Chitrangada Singh, Prachi Desai

Direction: Kapil Sharma

Rating: **

John Abraham had said in his promotional interviews that he was confident that the content of the film will ensure its success but alas, his confidence was misplaced. Kapil Sharma’s ‘I, Me Aur Main’ had a promising premise but the execution left a lot to be desired.

Like the promos have made it abundantly clear, Ishaan Sabharwal (John Abraham) is a “man-child”, self-obsessed and narcissistic. He lives with his long-term girlfriend Anushka (Chitrangada Singh) but is too self-absorbed to notice that she is desperately in love with him and wants to take the relationship to the next level. Tired of being taken for granted she dumps him and throws him out of her apartment. Ishaan promptly moves on to a new house and girl next door Gauri (Prachi Desai).

Needless to say Ishaan and Gauri soon begin to get emotionally involved but there’s an inevitable twist in the tale. And to slow the already snail pace

Kai Po Che premiereCast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh, Raj Kumar Yadav, Amrita Puri

Director: Abhishek Kapoor

Rating: ****

Abhishek Kapoor’s ‘Kai Po Che’ based on Chetan Bhagat’s book ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’ is essentially a story about friendship. The story is however, layered with the protagonist’s passion for nurturing sports talent and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat at the turn of the century and depicts some of the key happenings of that time.

Ishaan (Sushant Singh Rajput), Omi (Amit Sadh) and Govind (Raj Kumar Yadav) are best buddies, who have very different career objectives but are inseparable friends. Initially they pool in their resources to start a sports equipment shop and a cricket training ground but soon, differences fester and they drift apart.

Abhishek Kapoor deftly handles the narrative; the first half is an endearing tale of friendship and male bonding as each friend tries to help the other. The second half is a sensitive portrayal of how the Bhuj earthquake in 2001

Race 2Abbas-Mustan’s ‘Race 2’ promised to be high on the style quotient but the essential question was whether the film will deliver as a complete entertainer? The critics’ verdict is in and this is what some of them had to say:

Sanjukta Sharma is clear about her expectations from a film like this one:

Abbas and Mustan Burmawalla, brothers and director-duo, are Bollywood’s master recyclers of pulp action thrillers. They have a glossy, plastic idiom, heavily dependent on European locations and post-production gimmickry. Race cars can be in glitzy slow motion. In fact, slow motion in jagged loops is their trademark. The men in these movies are always rakish; they live in ritzy hotels and casinos, and are surrounded by women who are always fashionably styled and brain-dead. Sexist humour drives the subplots.

But she adds that the “new action thriller is bad pulp; and a love story fit to be a television serial.”