Velayutham

Oh here is Superman, well not really
Oh wait, is he Robin hood, nope, not really
Oh then he is a man in disguise, doing good, nope, not really
he is simply Vijay... the actor!!
and then there are a zillion others who come and go in the scenes!! 

The Story is of how a imaginary character created by Bharathi [Genelia] comes to life via Velayutham[Vijay] and fights against all the evil [the muslim terrorist, fake note printing, corrupt consciousless Home Minister...]

The movie opens with Bharathi and her two friends [journalist] working towards bringing to light the evil going on underground, but the villains kill her friends, and hurt her pretty bad, tossing her into the river, assuming she is dead.. She manages to write a note saying there is a person who is born to kill all the evil and signs off saying "velayutham" seeing the Vel in a nearby temple.. Much to her surprise, there is a man named Velayutham who seems to be doing exactly what she had in mind....

Velayutham is a milk man from a small town, creating havoc in the name of love for his sister [ Saranya Mohan] much to the chagrin of the villagers, who are just waiting to kick him out. The antics he does for his sister are howlarious and heart warming to see the amount of love. He has taken care of his sister since their parents left them, bringing her up, and getting her married to a suitable boy. Oh, and there is Vaidehi [Hansika Motwani], the pretty village girl who has a thing for Velayutham but he does not bite the bullet and keeps dodging her...

The movie then moves to Chennai where Vijay lands to encash the chit he had been collected over the years for his sister's wedding where he meets another investor, and ofcourse Santhanam, the small time theif who is terrible at stealing... Under the pretext of taking care of Velu and his family, Santhanam gets them to stay with him in hope of doing away with the 15lakhs once Velu encashes the chit fund....

The twists and turns that occur from the time Velu lands in Chennai to his sister's wedding is a mix of uneblieveable acts, gimmicks and acrobatics...  Director Raja seems to have been inspired by Vikram's Anniyan to a point where he gets Velu into a costume complete with a sword and has him flying in air, riding a horse out of nowhere and discovering evil men everywhere he lands.... Starting with Velu getting off the train and riding off a bike parked in the station waiting for someone to pick it up, which had a bomb that explodes just as Velu abandons it in the chase after Santhanam, to returinng a suitcase that his sister spots in the crowded Ranganathan street, leading him to follow the bad man and return the suitcase, wherein the bomb explodes at their abode where they are busy stashing away Fake notes.... 

The grand finale that takes place in the Stadium where the Home Minister promises to reveal the identity by making the Muslim terrorist dress up in Velayutham's outfit and conning the audience, which fails miserably leading to the truth coming out in the open...

There are so many scenes in the movie that made me wonder - what was Raja thinking when he took on this script....

No Doubt this is a good come back for Vijay... but there are so many parts in the movie that are just wierd, unbelieveable and funny[not in the haha funny, but what the hell kinda funny]...

A meeting called by the Home Minister with NOT a single COP in sight
An auditorium full of people and not a single guard
A knife plunged into Genelia, but she comes out like nothing happened
A fair and city bred looking Hansika who is the daughter of Bhaskar in a village 

Good to see Pandiarajan back in the big screen... 

and there is only so much that Santhanam can also do to keep the audience awake!! :D

Too much ....I just dont buy it!!!

[movie] The Good the bad the Ugly..

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a movie made in 1966, that i watched sometime in the 80s but remember vividly till date....

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a movie with a catchy theme song, that used to be my ring tone, that i still trip on....

Recently discovered The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme song performed by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and it is sooo amazing, been listening to it everyday , multiple times!!






Its amazing how a movie from decades ago is fresh and cherished, but there are some that i watched few days ago, that left no mark!! 

[Movie] Wake up Sid

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Rahul Khanna

Director: Ayan Mukerji

Music: Shankar Ehsaan & Loy

Rating: ****1/2

Verdict: Good light fun movie!!


“Wake Up Sid” was one delightful movie. The movie has a constant smooth flow throughout; no over the top or understated drama scenes; no ultra emotional strangulation of the audiences; absolutely no hippie-yuppie cool dude acting by Ranbir; and last but not the least, a very realistic, and refreshing story.

 
  A movie that reminds you of those fun college days,  where there is one guy who is the rich brat, not worried about anything in life, always surrounded by money and fancy stuff. Wake up Sid is the story of how Sid transforms from a spoilt rich brat to a responsible young man.. and the journey is so real and so so much fun, the audience is with him through the way!!!

 
While the film actually becomes really engrossing in the second half, the first half facilitates an adequate groundwork for the story to progress. As you watch Sid mature, and by the time he returns to his dad (Anupam Kher in a short but effective role), you realise that the destination was eventually met even as the journey wasn’t quite ‘on your face’ or ‘over the top’.

 Meanwhile Konkona gets yet another complex role for herself. She is absolutely brilliant. Watch out for her in the interview scene with Rahul Khanna and the emotional outburst when Ranbir decides to go back to his parents’ house. Her irritation is so utterly believable and so are the tender ways in which she looks after him, and the slow process of falling in love with the guy she thought was her total opposite.... :)

 The beauty of ‘Wake Up Sid’ lies in the honesty with which all the characters have been portrayed, bringing them so close to the real life. Be it the problem of English-speaking Sid not being on the same wavelength as his Punjabi-speaking Mom or the Sid who is simply wonderful with his friends, we identify with him completely. The simple dialogues of the movie make it all the more easy to relate with.The good part about the ‘transformation’ that Sid undergoes in the movie is that it comes over a period of time, not overnight or within the space of a song.
 
Yes, the character of Sid has various similarities to Hrithik in Lakshya, Aamir / Saif in Dil Chahta Hai but this movie will leave an imprint in your heart, and you will walk out of the theater humming Wake up Sid!!
 
Fav songssssss that i've been tripping on multiple times during the day... -- Kya Karoon?', 'Iktara', 'Wake Up Sid'
 

Shootout at Lokhandwala.. what a movie it was...

Director : Apoorva Lakhia

Starring : Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Arbaaz Khan, Viveik Oberoi, Tusshar Kapoor, Rohit Roy, Shabbir Aluwalia, Aditya Lakhia, Amrita Singh, Diya Mirza, Neha Dhupia and Abhishek Bachchan (as far as I could remember)

A movie I had been wanting to watch for a really long time, almost 2months finally happened today.. I had picked up the dvd from my library and decided to see it today.. had seen and heard the songs before, love the Ganpat song a lot..

A real life incident made into a movie called ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’ has a huge starcast and is a thriller from the minute it starts to the last scene… Has you totally involved and watching every scene without blinking your eyes.. It’s a re-creation of the Lokhandwala shootout of 1991, in which underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s henchmen were killed by cops.

The first scene is in an old tattered apartment building where we see brooms and buckets of water used in cleaning dried blood and bullets in Lokhandwala . News reporter Meeta (Diya Mirza) reports that some 3000 rounds of ammunition were discharged by a large police squad at a previously peaceful residential locality.

The film then moves to the office of former chief justice turned private prosecutor Dhingra (Amitabh Bachchan) where he interviews the three leading members of the Police ATS, Inspector General Shamsher Khan (Sanjay Dutt), Inspector Kaviraj Patil (Suneil Shetty) and Javed Sheikh (Arbaaz Khan). The entire movie is kinda like a flashback of what really happened being narrated by the Cops part of the ATS team, who were involved in the shootout.Starts with how Inspector Abhishek (played by yours truly Abhishek bachchan) was killed by the underworld and goes on till the chase is complete and Mumbai is rid of the biggest gang ever....

The story is of the seasoned dedicated driven Khan, who with this team of handpicked cops like Inspector Kaviraj and Javed engaged in bringing down the gangsters in a residential locality of Mumbai and says they have made Mumbai a better city to live in. The gangsters being Maya (Absolutely phenomenal performance by Vivek oberoi), and his highly skilled partner, Buva (Tusshar kapoor who’s fitted into this character very well) who are cold-blooded killers, who wouldn’t give up without a fight and the only person they answer to this Bhai who controls their activities from Dubai, who towards the end is the reason for their death.

Thus begins a dangerous cat-and-mouse game where neither side shows any overt aggression but tries to disable the adversary by tactical maneuver. Khan launches "visits" to the criminals' families to try and "persuade" them to counsel the criminals to surrender. In turn, Maya and his men return the "visit" by approaching the cops at social situations. Maya visits Khan at a restaurant where Khan is having a eat out with his family. Maya quietly tells Khan: "This is between your men and mine. Leave the families out of it."

The constantly-charged adrenaline-driven narrative moves across gullies and roads with a ricocheting effect. The ear-splitting soundtrack reverberates with sounds of guns and ganas. The item songs in the beer bar are a rude reminder of how much the original true-life material needed to be re-worked for it to be audience-friendly.

Interesting aspect of this movie is how much attention has been paid to recreating the city as it was back then, detailing of the period…the phone booths, the crumbling buildings, the smoky skyline …all reminding us that the more things change, the more they are the same.

I could go on and on about each scene, but I would be spoiling it for you if you read this before watching the movie.. so go on, pick up the dvd or vcd , if ur really lucky and its still running in theaters, go run for it.. watch it.. savor every scene… get lost in lokhandwala and come out a changed person.. Mind blowing, I can only imagine what it was like in real..