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Reviews
Delhi-6 (2009)
Not for people who only like movies to pass the time
I normally very strongly dislike Hindi films. Most people who like intelligent, artful, deep films usually hate films from "Bollywood", and with good reason. There's a reason why Hindi films aren't seriously considered when there is a discussion of great films. Slumdog Millionaire doesn't count for obvious reasons.
Delhi 6 is a film which finally made me believe that there IS potential in India, and a desire to make a film which isn't just meant to be spoonfed to the audience.
For people who have spent their entire lives, watching films which are only what they are at first glance and nothing more, this film will be undoubtedly annoy and bore them. That probably means most of the Indian audience, unfortunately. And that unfortunately means, this film will not do well financially, and will discourage producers from making a wonderful film like this.
Delhi 6 will not make sense to people who take EVERY SINGLE THING in a film literally and don't dig deeper to try and understand the implicit meanings. This film is wonderfully directed, acted, and very evidently produced with heart and love.
I would definitely submit this film as the selection from India for the Oscar foreign film section. It's *that* good.
Don't watch this if you're looking for a "masala" movie. If you're looking for a film which will make you believe in India's ability to make excellent movies, this is it.
Jodhaa Akbar (2008)
Impressive visuals, everything else? Not really.
I did not go into this movie with very high expectations. But as always, I throw out whatever feelings I have before the movie, and watch it with an open mind.
It was severely disappointing. I'm not going to make this very long so I'll just be brief. Hrithik's acting was just.....okay, it was not acting. He was simply reading lines, throughout the entire movie. It doesn't seem like he has the ability to do anything besides very emotionally charged scenes, or scenes which are so clichéd and overdone that they can be easily mimicked. He can only do scenes in which he's supposed to be angry, or upset, or happy. Real acting is to be able to show conviction in dialogue which is not very charged, which on paper seems very plain. He doesn't seem capable of that. I like his energy, but that's all he's got really. Even Aishwarya did a slightly better job than him in this film, and she's usually a very wooden actor herself, with the same characteristic of being able to only do emotionally charged scenes. Other actors in the film, Sonu Sood (who should have played Akbar), Ila Arun, Kulbhushan Kharbanda did quite well. Sonu Sood who plays Sujamal, Jodhaa's childhood friend, really impressed me. His character's dialogue wasn't that great, but he took those lines and he made them real. He should've played Akbar instead of Hrithik. Nikitin Dheer, who plays Akbar's brother in law Sarifuddin Husain, was horrible. This guy was obviously only picked due to his stature and look. He was simply just reading lines throughout the film.
The film as a whole is very disjointed, and uninteresting. It has horrible pacing, which goes up and down constantly, and relentlessly. The sets are very well designed if anything. The movie doesn't mix the love story well with the historical events that are occurring in the film. It feels like two separate films joined together; a love story movie and a historical movie. It seems much longer than the movie already is. I was surprised to find out that the running time was just over three hours. I thought it was easily four hours. Frankly the whole idea of the film is wrong. Jodhaa Akbar. The whole premise, concept of the movie is surrounding their "love story". Of course, a love story, is what needs to be created to sell tickets with Indian film audience, but if they were interested in making a good movie, it would've been about Akbar, with pinches of Jodhaa here and there. It should've been about Akbar and who he was, his conquests, what was occurring in that part of the world at that time. I never found myself caring about the love story at all. And I'm not one to dislike love stories. I do enjoy a good love story if done well. But I never at any point cared about their relationship. It was very uninteresting.
It wasn't a horrible movie, but it was what I'd call a waste of time. If you're bored, and you just wanna go see a movie, then by all means, go ahead. It's not so bad that I think it would be mentally detrimental for you to see it (like most of the current lot of Hindi movies). But if you are really interested in seeing something good, this is not your boat. Stay home and read a book instead.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
Great story, good acting, poor film
As a story, this was written well and would've been quite engaging if it was not such a poorly made film. I apologize, but unlike everyone else, just because there has been such a lack of good films lately, people are willing to jump on the bandwagon of any movie that doesn't completely suck. And that is what I feel is happening with this movie (and the Departed, which had great acting, superior direction, but a weak script).
This movie is very much unnecessarily drawn out. While some films warrant the long running times, this film does not. It almost feels as if to make it seem like an intelligent, grand-scale film, there was a running time goal. The same story could've been told in a 2 hour film much more engagingly. Long drawn out moments in which there is supposed to be a lot of subtext just seemed dry, and the obvious attempt for a human element during those scenes was simply not felt. At no point did I feel I could sympathize at all with the main character for his "sacrifices".
So in summary, this movie feels more like a history book acted out rather than an emotionally involving story. And I hate to say it, because while I like Matt Damon, his performance was nothing short of mediocre. I do not blame him, but the script. There wasn't much range in his character to show any acting prowess, this role could've been performed by any half-decent struggling acting student. So I sincerely hope he is not nominated for best actor (even though he will probably be).