#SabKiBajegiBand #HindiBollywoodFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * *

#SabKiBajegiBand #HindiBollywoodFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * *

#PicksAndPiques/SnippetFilmReview 1^stMay2015/#JohnsonThomas

 

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#PicksAndPiques/SnippetFilmReview1^stMay 2015/#JohnsonThomas

 

#GabbarIsBack(Hindi) Rating: * * It’s Ak’s #JaiHo and just as silly, unbelievable and inconsequential in premise and action. Plying it straight as a brand war between a vengeance seeking social transformer  and savvy entrepreneur villain, the ensuing action regurgitates formulaic set-ups and stereotypes with all the self-righteousness and superciliousness typical of mainstream Bollywood. Claims to be officially remade from a Murgadoss directed Telugu flick (Ramanna)of 2003- so now you know how dated the film is too. The idea for the remake must have sprung from last year’s #AnnaHazare & #NAC led Anti-corruption crusade but unfortunately the audience has already moved away from that leitmotif.  An idealistic-professor cum vigilante setting out to cure the system is just so passé now. There’s nothing tangible to hold on to here other than some south-side formula that seems so alien in today’s day and age!  #AkshayKumar #Krish #AMurgodoss #ErosInternational  #Viacom18MotionPictures #BhansaliProductions #SanjayLeelaBhansali #PanoramaStudios #ShabinaaKhan

 

#SabKiBajegiBand(Hindi) Rating: * * A bunch of friends park themselves in a farmhouse and pour out their secrets in-camera for a film helmed by one of their own. Their allusions are meant to tag the film industry and expose the real truth behind the starry façade. Billed as a ‘Reality’ film, a first of it’s kind, supposedly, this concept film plays out irritatingly without any logic or sustenance to keep you involved. That it covers every possible hidden truth of a society that is unable to live up to it’s own standards, is neither here nor there!   #AnirudhChawla #1HPR #HemaUpadhyay #TejasPR #YenMovies #PerceptPictures #KapilSharma #SwaraBhaskar #AlekhSangal #SumeetVyas #ShauryaChauhan

 

#WhileWe’reYoung(English) Rating: * * * Softly drawn charmingly humorous portrait of a 40 something couple coming to terms with inevitable truths about themselves while struggling to be something they are not- by getting them befriended by a 20 something couple out to live life to the fullest possible in every which way-put forward by intergenerational harmonizing. The first hour or so is light, breezy and enjoyable but when the realization sets in, it becomes a little heavy-duty and tedium inducing. Even so the overall experience is heightened by the freshness of the charm and wit on display.

#PVRPictures #HardlyAnonymousPR #NaomiWatts #BenStiller  #AdamDriver #AmandaSeyfried #NoahBaumbach #A24FilmsRelease

 

Hindi Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Reality film minus the ‘Reality’ check!

Film: Sabki Bajegi Band

Cast: Sumeet Vyas, Swara Bhaskar, Alekh Sangal, Shaurya Chauhan, Aman Uppal, Jhanvi Desai, Samarth Shandilya, Nisha Lalwani, Raj Kumar Yadav

Director: Anirudh Chawla

Rating: * *

 

This film has been prepped as an unveiling of the deep and dark secrets of the glamour world. Unfortunately there’s no glamour to speak of in the film- just an ugly expose of hidden truths that oh-so-conveniently happen to belong to the motley group of friends assembled in a farm house (BIG BOSS anyone?)on the pretext of a party- but actually to get them to reveal all on camera as part of a first-time effort being made by one of their young friends, Karan, a wannabe filmmaker. So it’s a film within a film set-up and therefore the reality concept.

There’s a married couple(Swara Bhaskar and Sumeet Vyas), a newly engaged couple, a couple madly in love and living together, a nerd, a free-thinking hottie, and a typical north Indian who boasts of many conquests but…

So there’s ample scope for all kind of revelations and the filmmaker, an RJ turned film director, Anirudh Chawla, who claims to have an in on celeb secrets, probably wants us to actually link the piece-meal revelations to stars we know and adore. Frankly in this day and age none of those revelations could be even deemed as shocking. One from the assemblage is gay and closeted and willing to get married for respectability, another has an incestuous relationship with a cousin and has an abortion, a third talks big but cant get it up, a fourth seems all liberated on the outside but when it comes to his own girlfriend not telling him about a liaison, does a freak-out. A husband has an extra-marital affair but when his wife claims to have had one too and is pregnant he gets into name-calling and wants a divorce. Another is involved with a married man and doesn’t have any qualms about having gone through the casting couch either. Some of the characters spout homilies that make you cringe with their superciliousness. So dumb and ignorant are the innuendos that you’d think the script was written by a naïve college student. Such is the nonsense palmed off as social messaging.

 

 Nothing is new nor is there any thing specifically interesting in the treatment here. Since it’s a concept film don’t look for logic either. There isn’t any story to tell. The group get together and Karan, gets them to agree to talk about their secrets patterned on a game format, for his sophomore effort.  The revelations are all neatly segmented in sections with titles aiming to be funny. But for the viewer there isnt any relief. Since the director doesnt bother to develop any of the characters enough for us to develop any empathy for them –you end up feeling like you are in alien territory.  The flippant nature of the treatment makes the painful revelations seem trivial and unintentionally funny too. The dialogues sound a little forced and unnatural. And the camerawork is so jittery that you feel totally out-of-focus all through the ordeal. The incessant flurry of words also makes you cringe as there’s no respite from the sound blasts.  The actors are natty enough in their performances but there’s no connect so it’s a lost cause anyway. Yes, band zaroor bajeki..apki!

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