SAAWARIYA

Name: Saawariya
Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee, and Zohra Sehgal
Rating: *****


A breath of fresh air. A fresh cast. A fresh approach to movie making. And a brilliant product.

Adapted from a play by Fyodor Dostovsky, the movie is a new form of story telling. The sets are larger than life, artistic. Its like a dreamland.

The story, the performances leave the audiences enthralled.

A word of caution though: For those looking for a typical bollywood masala movie, you are going to be disappointed. To enjoy this movie you must go in expecting to watch a play on the big screen.

The movie is in line with the hollywood musicals of yesteryears... and I must say Sanjay Leela Bhansali has excelled himself and shown that the real filmmaker is one who is not scared of trying a new theme.

Sadly, the audience at large hasn't responded well to it, with the trade pundits referring to the movie as a flop. To me the movie represents a benchmark in movie making in India. And mark my words, the movie is going to be remembered as a classic in terms of film making. Kudos to him.

My vote: MUST watch

OM SHANTI OM

Name: Om Shanti Om
Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade and Kiron Kher
Rating: **


Once upon a time, there was a movie directed by a brilliant director, with a wonderful cast, a brilliant plot, haunting music and great performance. Some decades later, a director decided to pick up the masterpiece and tear it to shreds.

Sounds familiar? This seems to be the story of our times. Sholay becomes Aag, Umrao Jaan becomes Umrao Jaan and Karz becomes Om Shanti Om.

A typical masala movie, with signature Farah Khan style. Larger than life. Melodramatic performance. In your face humor. All stuff that Farah is brilliant with and does a great job of. The first half of the movie is very interesting ...and makes one think ... WOW.

Then the interval happens. And it seems that Farah left the sets and handed over the reigns to the tea boy to take over. The film moves downhill at a speed that makes blinking of an eye seem like a lifetime.

Maybe Farah needs to go back to the editing board, cut the movie only till the interval and re-release it and let it go on to become a masterpiece in movie satire.

But the success (??) of the movie makes one wonder about the Indian audience. Are we so star struck that we will accept anything with Shahrukh Khan? I know of people who've seen it three, four, even five times !!!

Great score, good acting (especially by Arjun Rampal), but unfortunately, a director who lost it.

My vote: Get a DVD of the movie. Watch the first half. Return it. Do not waste your hard earned money for a Rs.150 ticket at the multiplex and neither your time.