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Reviews
Tamasha (2015)
Imtiaz Ali is trying too hard to connect with the new age India.
Tamasha is a very good example of how marketing teams can glorify a movie. If you carefully read IMDb reviews, you will notice that most positive reviews are very eloquent and seem to be written by 'professionals'. The not so positive reviews are written in normal English by what seem like normal Hindi movie-goers. Clearly, the paid review business is flourishing.
As it is aptly titled, Tamasha, is a love story told in 'tamasha' format and is laced with severe dose of melodrama, over the top emotions and excessive screaming in a typical 'nautanki' style. The director Imtiaz Ali forgets that 'Trying to be cool is not cool'. He is trying too hard to create a masterpiece and in the endeavor failing to tough the hearts of the same people who have enjoyed his past movies.
The story is the worst culprit of this below average movie. For example, the hero seems to have a split personality. It is really hard to digest that a free-spirited positively radiant person in the first half is actually completely different in real life - he is an unemotional robot at work and very cold with his coworkers/friends. He screams randomly at people around him, gets verbally abusive with his girlfriend and is pretty much a jerk all around. Imtiaz justifies the 'real' personality in the story. He is a jerk because his father had pushed him to take up a profession that he wasn't interested in. The worst part is that there is no apology for such negative attitude and behavior. On the contrary, the story suggests that it is OK to be mean and obnoxious if your life is not turning out the way you had dreamed. Also, why is the heroine determined to assume that the first personality of the hero (the free-spirited on-vacation one) is the real one? What if the jerk is actually a jerk and is just hidden behind the suppressed story teller? Just because he got to pursue his passion of story telling in the end doesn't change the fact that he has been a jerk (in the best case) or a complete psycho (in the worst case). The heroine of the movie comes across as a clueless person who refuses to see any of the red flags. I am amazed at the director's decision to show a modern sensible woman staying on with such an unstable person in the end. She should have moved on.
If it wasn't for Deepika and Ranbeer, the movie would have been a total dud. They have acted very well and have kept the lackluster story together through their sizzling chemistry. Despite the amazing performances, the lead star cast barely saves the movie from its own shortcomings. The movie is a one-time watch for those who take pleasure in watching any candy floss Indian cinema and do not mind the lack of an interesting story.
Aurangzeb (2013)
Enjoyable.
There are many gangster movies lately. This new addition is more engaging than some others I have seen. The lead characters are well written and the story has a decent plot with not many loopholes. The movie starts slow but picks up pace very quickly. However, in this movie, like many others, the good guys do not die even when the entire gang is shooting at them. This Bollywood touch gets unintentionally comical. But overall, the movie was enjoyable.
The backdrop of Gurgaon real estate is new. I have wondered when will someone come up with a story around the real estate boom that Gurgaon has seen.
Arjun Kapoor acted well in both his roles. Prithviraj was intense. Rishi Kapoor had the Haryanvi touch in his dialogs in the first half, in the second half it was lost (weird). Jackie Shroff was mellow and didn't look like the emperor that he was supposed to portray. He looked like a sad old man.. May be this was the intent. Sasha Aagha had nothing much to do in the film. Why was she there again? Wish there was more of Deepti Naval, her role seems to have been chopped.