(According to Raju Jat Pk is a 5 star movie)

after an entire year of being subjected to unalloyed trash generated by box office sharks that cannot see beyond their weekend collections, bollywood enthusiasts who value their intelligence - and their hard-earned money - finally have reason to rejoice. pk is here. rajkumar hirani's first film in five years is a warm, funny and piercingly provocative satire that should blow the blues away. it is the kind of full-blooded but genteel entertainer that should get us all into just the right frame of mind to usher in christmas and bid adieu to a year that has seen us celebrate ugly excess on all fronts with unseemly glee. pk, buoyed by a magnificent script and outstanding acting all around, is an uplifting fantasy that springs a surprise at every turn but never overplays its hand. it comes as close to storytelling perfection as any mainstream hindi movie has done in living memory. it has great songs, beautifully filmed musical set pieces, brilliant pacing and nary a moment that flags. as a cinematic send-up on gods true and fake, pk pulls no punches at all and speaks its mind like a carefree child that has just learnt to talk and make sense of the world. but this hard-hitting critique of all that ails a nation that seems to have lost its human moorings and is in blind pursuit of false panaceas remains good-natured all the way through. the screenplay by hirani and abhijat joshi demands a degree of willing suspension of disbelief, especially when it comes to a few of the pivotal coincidences that drive the narrative. the characters and the crucial dramatic and comic moments are, however, informed with such infectious warmth and beauty that nothing that the plot throws up is ever in danger of ringing overly false. the five-year hiatus between 3 idiots and this film has clearly served them well. the screenwriters have worked a delicately crafted love story into the taut tapestry of pk, thereby lending it an emotional dimension that usually eludes a high-minded satire. even the principal antagonist in pk, tapasvi maharaj, played superbly by saurabh shukla, isn't an ogre designed to evoke disgust. pk is out to provoke but not to shock. the film asks questions via its idiot savant protagonist, but does not attempt to deliver facile, absolute answers. and that makes it all the more effective. pk is propelled primarily by aamir khan's delightfully droll superstar turn as a nameless seer from outer space who is stranded on planet earth - in rajasthan and delhi to be precise. this is an unlikely saga of an alien who lands in the desert completely naked like a new-born baby and then proceeds to acquire the ways of human adults in a bid to survive in a hostile environment. his fate hinges on whether he can regain a stolen gadget that he needs in order to return to his home light years away and cling on to his purity as his brushes with mankind becomes increasingly hazardous. in one of the film's quirkiest scenes, he learns the language of humans by drawing words out of the mind of a sleepy bhojpuri-speaking sex worker that he is led to by his only friend in the desert of rajasthan, band master bhairon singh (sanjay dutt). the search for the remote control device that he needs to summon his spaceship back to earth eventually sees him end up in india's capital city. there he encounters a tenacious television journalist jaggu sahni (anushka sharma), just back with a painful heartbreak in beautiful bruges. he also comes up against a rapacious godman who is responsible for thwarting jaggu's marriage with her pakistani boyfriend sarfaraz yusuf (sushant singh rajput). the girl, befuddled by the long-eared stranger's unpredictable and inexplicable powers and saddled with the 'breaking news' of a suicidal puppy, sells the story to the channel boss (boman irani). once he finds his way on to the television screen, the unflappable extra-terrestrial unleashes a storm that sweeps everything and everyone in its way. and that most certainly includes the audience. anushka sharma, playing a feisty poetry-loving girl who knows her mind far more than most hindi film heroines are allowed to, holds her own against aamir khan. aamir revels in the character of the wide-eyed, fearless rebel who dares to challenge the societal and religious structures that encourage bigotry and distrust. sushant singh rajput has only a cameo in pk but in the handful of scenes that he is in - including one in the run-up to the climax that ratchets up emotions and vigorously pulls the heartstrings - he gives a great account of himself. do watch out for ranbir kapoor - a little icing on a cake so appetizing that it will have you clamouring for more. pk is a winner all the way, a film that raj kapoor, bimal roy and guru dutt would have been proud of had they been alive. rajkumar hirani is without a doubt their most worthy standard-bearer.
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(According to Raju Jat Kill Dil is a 4 star movie)

a stylishly shot and neatly packaged action caper, kill dil could have been a killer film. it isn't. it simply doesn't have enough soul and substance to be able to go all the way to the finish line with its grand design in one piece. director shaad ali, back in action seven years after the jhoom barabar jhoom debacle, shows clear signs of rustiness. in one scene, on a wall of an insurance company's boardroom, he hangs a portrait of hindi cinema's most iconic mother, nirupa roy, under a nameplate that reads 'founder'. his ideas may not be quite as ancient as the much-revered character actress that he invokes, but much of the material that ali juggles with in kill dil belongs firmly to the past. remember all those 'no vacancy' montages that would pop up every now and then on our silver screens in the good old black-and-white era, with the unemployed hero wiping the sweat off his forehead after each job rejection? kill dil has its own variation on the theme: the protagonist, having traded his gun for a fake graduation certificate, hops from one place to another desperately looking for employment. predictably, he is summarily ticked off by stand-offish interviewers and sent packing. but don't forget that we live in a "new and shining india". so the guy does eventually get lucky with a character played by a suited and booted alok nath (who else?). the director, on his part, banks upon his only trump card - lyricist gulzar's evocative lines, some of which are rendered in the poet's resonant voice - to hold the thin narrative together. but neither the surfeit of songs nor the quirky storytelling devices that ali employs to liven up kill dil can prevent the dagger of futility running right through the heart of the film's aspirations and draining all life out of it. a hackneyed plot is the undoing of kill dil. have a good look at the poster on the way out: the slash between the two words in the title is about the only thing that eventually stands out. all the other slanted strokes that are thrown into the film fall flat on their bellies. two male foundlings raised by a delhi ncr gangster (govinda) become the latter's trusted hitmen, dev (ranveer singh) and tutu (ali zafar). from the garbage dump to the heights of the underworld - their journey is swift and sans hiccups. at their boss' behest, the two buddies kill at will and then count the stars in the sky in the belief that those that they dispatch to hell end up somewhere in the firmament. trouble erupts when one of the two shooters falls in love with a wealthy girl (parineeti chopra), whose day job is the rehabilitation of ex-convicts. the pretty girl casts a spell and the lover boy wants to opt out of the life of crime he is trapped in. but his mentor is hell bent on preventing him from making a clean exit. if that doesn't sound all that original, sample this: kill dil is actually a 'love' triangle with an accidental difference. it is a m�nage a trois in which a boy loves a girl, but the boy's benefactor loves the boy even more and refuses to set him free. so that nobody misses the point, the film even has a song staged in split-screen glory: the boy sways in gay abandon with his lady love while the angry and oh-so-sad gangster dances with his men in his den, pining for his right hand man. talking of songs, kill dil has one for every occasion. the characters sing before a kill, after a kill, at a birthday party, during diwali festivities, when love happens, and even when a reformed criminal hunts for a regular job. by themselves, the songs make perfect sense, thanks to gulzar's lyrics and shankar-ehsaan-loy's music. but in the context of the pace of the film, they are eminently avoidable speed-breaking irritants. govinda in an all-new mean, if not lean, avatar is interesting, but that is about it. he still seems to be most at ease when he is allowed to tap his feet. fluff is ranveer singh's forte. he is good when he is playful; passable when he has to pull off heavy-duty emoting; but best when he is required to be only a bundle of energy. ali zafar's overly affable presence does not quite gel with the cool-cat, ruthless gunman that he plays. parineeti chopra isn't obviously cut out for the sultry siren act, but all she needs are the little moments when she is allowed to be real - like when she proposes to the boy she loves atop qutub minar - to demonstrate why she deserves meatier roles. watch kill dil if you have plenty of time to kill. it is unlikely to deliver much joy to your dil, though.
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(According to Raju Jat Titoo Mba is a 4 star movie)

the best part with titoo mba is the introduction titles as it takes you right into the heartland of punjab and the real interiors of the rural landscape and into the movies main storyline. it goes to the credit of the director amit vats & the writer puja ballutia who is also there in the film, to have created the kind of ambiance and atmosphere very typical of a punjabi household and the neighbors around. what strikes you most is the freshness of the lead cast.especially pragya jaiswal as gulshan, an academic topper & a female hockey player representing the college. having won several trophies & awards and appreciations since school days, she has developed a personality who will not stand any nonsense and take shit from anyone. in stark contrast we have our main lead protagonist takhat singh gill aka titoo ( nishant dahiya ) who has lost his way trying to make it big in business. his initial forays into liquor, female garments, and poultry business turns out to be a nightmare of sorts and having lost heavily, tries to even it up by borrowing heavily from one and all and getting into heavy debts , knows not how to get out of it. a chance encounter with his childhood friend, changes his style of thinking and gets him into one of the most unconventional but highly paying business. the director has very effectively tried to take the story to its ultimate end. dialogues are bang on ! very typical with punjabi flavor. this is nishant’s second outing after his debut film with yrf “mujse fraandship karoge “. he has a very affable and charming personality. he gets into the skin of the character very effortlessly, bringing forth the dilemma of a person caught in similar situation. on the other hand pragya jaiswal in her debut role has delivered one of the most striking performance . she looks very much the typical punjab di kuddi earthy , smart, gorgeous and sensuously beautiful to the core. she shows the veterans flair for switching from innocence to blatantly wild and romantic to the hilt. there are some sequences where both of them have chance to shine, especially the arranged marriage meetings, typical boy girl ececcentricities and titoo’s encounter of the weird kind with his business partners. there is a good dose of the third angle to the triangle ! shanty ! yes ! shanty has childhood crush on gulshan and is virtually obsessed with her and is ready to go to any extent to get her and her attention. for this he seeks the help from the baba of a dirty kind and dirty doing. all hell breaks loose when titoo’s alternate career indulgences gets of the hook and gets exposed. camera work by karan b rawat is quite adequate and editing pretty crisp. as for music by arjuna harjai, it has its moments. the numbers o soniye sung by arijit sigh and vibha saraf is very hummable and adds to the narrative , also the number kya hua again sung by arijit singh strike a chord. atyachaari written and sung by surabhi dashputra and arjun harjai adds to the momentum. just go and watch fun unfold as titoo with his wild escapades takes on the might of bold & bindaas yet very much vulnerable but very lovely and beautiful gulshan.
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(According to Raju Jat Happy Ending is a 5 star movie)

it is never a particularly good idea to marry a happy ending to a rash of loose ends, but the result that the director duo of raj nidimoru and krishna dk extract from this quirky and risky exercise is none-too-unhappy. from last year's zom-com go goa gone to this crazy "comedy about romantic comedies", the directors haven't really shifted gears quite to the extent that they might appear to have done. they are still into crafting whimsical, bollywood-style send-ups of popular hollywood genres. in the rather patchy but inoffensive happy ending, the narrative style is bright and breezy enough to help them paper over the flaws in the screenplay. and the tone they adopt here is much less zany than the one they did in go goa gone, and so this film is infinitely easier to relate to. happy ending enmeshes the wildly absurd with the mildly funny to deliver two-and-a-quarter hours of harmless entertainment that does not overly try the audience's patience despite the many holes that it is riddled with. it mocks the filmic concept of the "till death do us part" kind of love. the commitment-phobic male protagonist at the heart of the film's plot falls in and out of love as if it were a swimming pool. the film also takes humorous jabs at how commercial films are conceptualized and written in the mumbai industry. and happy ending of course seeks to show up the futility of the honeyed dreams that romantic comedies peddle to a gullible audience. for producer and lead actor saif ali khan, happy ending represents a breezy rejig of his hum tum and salaam namaste persona of a decade ago. the confused philanderer act that he attempted with mixed results in the more recent cocktail now appears well past its sell-by date. yet, the many collegiate hook-ups and break-ups he pulls off in happy ending do not look completely at odds with the film's purpose. happy ending seeks to have us believe that there are no happy endings in real life. so, when we meet our man yudi jaitley, los angeles-based one-book wonder, his bestseller has dropped off the shelves of bookstores been put in the cut-price corner. what's worse, his bank balance has sunk dangerously low and he has defaulted on his car loan repayment. the swanky red crock is towed away and he is in grave danger of losing "the fame, money and girls" that he has had for the asking all these years. it is five and a half years since his book was published, and in this period he has dated eight and a half girls. with the ninth one, his dentist (kalki koechlin), he is, as always, in two minds. so the lady puts a tracker app on her mobile to constantly monitor his whereabouts. a voluble mumbai film producer (govinda) lands in los angeles in search of a writer who can rustle up a "kickass" rom-com: "a bollywood film written in hollywood style". yudi gets a lifeline. his drinking mate and foul weather aide is a married guy (ranvir shorey) who just can't shake off the vice-grip like that his wife has on his life. there is another bloke around yudi whose voice he heeds, and he is his own inner self - an ill-kempt, cynical, irritable creature (saif ali khan again) who does his best to warn him of the pitfalls that lie ahead. the biggest of them all is a rival writer (ileana d'cruz) whose pulpy romantic novel, crazy hearts, has dislodged yudi's operation payback from the list of bestsellers. there is no love lost between the two writers, and sparks fly when a desperate yudi begins to grab at straws for survival. as far as love stories go, happy ending goes nowhere. to be fair, the audience is warned as early as in the opening sequence in a movie hall. saif's yudi is munching popcorn noisily as his girlfriend (kareena kapoor in a special appearance) tries to let him know that she loves him to distraction. the hero is certainly mighty distracted. he makes no effort at all to reciprocate the girl's emotion. she stomps off angrily and dumps him, declaring that their relationship is going nowhere. if you expect happy ending to get somewhere, you are watching the wrong film. do not expect the world from happy ending and you might actually find in it enough enjoyable patches to make a trip to the multiplex worth your while.
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(According to Raju Jat Main Aur Mr. Riight is a 5 star movie)

main aur mr riight review star cast: shenaz treasurywala, barun sobti director: adeeb rais miss perfect looking for mr right: standard rom com schtick gets played out in ‘main aur mr riight, with a couple of nice touches, but it never lifts off the screen. aliya (shenaz treasurywala) is a bollywood casting agent with not a hair out of place, nor a crease in her dress. her search takes her through fruitless dates with artless men to no, as they say, avail. clearly, she is ripe for the ‘opposites attract’ cliche, and when struggling actor sukhi (barun sobti) shows up in her office with a hearty punjabi accent and crude sense of humour, we know where this is headed. this takes more than two long hours which leave us impatient. in between there are conversations between aliya and her pals — couples going through commitment issues, incipient fatherhood issues, and so on— but except for a few sequences, everything seems scripted, and silly. and the film takes the leading lady’s job description a bit too seriously, by giving us endless takes of strugglers trying their hand at ‘acting’. we end up, like her, grimacing and clutching her head. i liked that shenaz treasurywala‘s character is allowed to have a little thing with a guy in their group, and that a lonely wife moves on with a former love, leaving the always busy-busy spouse to his devices. sobti gets the hungry-actor look right, but the smiley treasurywala needed to be deeper. so did the film. one and a half sta
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(According to Raju Jat Ungli is a 4 star movie)

ungli is directed by rensil d'silva who is famous for his dud kurbaan (2009). this time he actually tries to make something different. ungli is a story of a group of people from different walks of life who get together to fight corruption. it's the usual aam aadmi standing up against the corrupt system. this gang has nikhil (emraan hashmi) who is a cop, maya (kangana ranaut), abhay (randeep hooda), kalim (angad bedi) and goti (neil bhoopalam). five friends who will make their own rules for the betterment of the society. nikhil joins them much later, the initial plan was to catch them but he felt he should join the gang instead. the issues picked up by ungli gang are those that affect the common man, like rickshaw drivers refusing short distances and traffic cops demanding bribe. ungli gang teaches all of them a lesson. finally even acp kale (sanjay dutt) the honest cop who has to nab them takes the help of this gang to fight the system. nikhil is a cop who never does his duty. mahesh manjrekar plays a fixer who lives in a high security house but anyone can walk into his vault like ungli gang does while he is fast asleep. his security guards wait quietly outside the door doing nothing. these are just two examples, i can go on and on about many such absurd scenes. suhani singh's review the script, screenplay and dialogues are just too juvenile! it's quite something that all this was cleared to be made into a film. emraan hashmi is good as usual and yes he has a kissing scene too. randeep hooda and sanjay dutt play their part well. it's good to see dutt back on the big screen that too in a police uniform. the girls kangana ranaut and neha dhupia have little to do. music by various composers didn't actually help. the intention may have been good but the plot is silly and way to unrealistic! it's kind of clear that some of it was possibly salvaged in post production but quite a bit was beyond repair. so ungli releases with all the loopholes at a theatre near you.
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(According to Raju Jat Action Jackson is a 5 star movie)

watch or not?: truly putting it down, this movie is worth your watch for what i would list down as only two reasons. a [you are a die-hard ajay devgn fan. b] you are a fan of ‘no-brainer’ movies. [literally ''no-brainer''] vishi is a local goon who basically likes beating up people to get his work done but is nonetheless a kind-hearted person. on the other hand khushi is an extremely clumsy girl who keeps losing her chances with destiny and gets suddenly lucky after she accidentally meets vishi.
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