Blog | Amodini's Movie Reviews - Part 22Amodini's Movie Reviews | Movie Reviews by Year, Genre and Rating

Movie Review : Sonchiriya

Posted on March 23, 2019 by amodini

Rating : 4/5
Genre : Mystery
Year : 2019
Running time : 2 hours
Director : Abhishek Chaubey
Cast : Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shourie, Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar, Ashutosh Rana
Kid rating : PG-13

Sonchiriya’s story is situated in the ravines of Chambal valley, circa 1975 during the Indian Emergency. It is about a band of dacoits lead by their leader Man Singh (Manoj Bajpai). When Man Singh is put out of circulation by a police ambush, Vakil Singh (Ranvir Shourey) is elected leader, but some of the gang members gravitate towards Lakhan Singh (Sushant Singh Rajput). The split widens further when the band comes across a woman, Indumati Tomar (Bhumi Pednekar), who asks for their protection from her pursuers, and Vakil and Lakhna disagree on whether they should help her or not.

Sonchiriya is literally “golden bird”, an elusive, mythical creature. Here it is used to symbolize absolution for a past misdeed. Lakhna looks at protecting Indumati and getting her gravely injured younger sister (whom she lovingly calls her “Sonchiriya”) to a hospital as his absolution. The film thus centers around Lakhan Singh – the man, his morals and his mission. In one scene he justifies his choice musing that he can face the world, but cannot face himself if he does the the wrong thing. Rajput does a great job of portraying an “honorable” dacoit.

Sonchiriya spans a wide landscape. This is a story about the dakus, but it also encompasses in its fold many social ills: casteism, classism, poverty and patriarchy. In a scenes between two women – the dacoit Phulia and the Thakur woman Indumati – Phulia laughs at Indumati’s pretensions to belonging to a higher caste, saying that while men might belong to different castes, women are in a special caste by themselves – the lowest one, oppressed by every other caste.

What impressed me about Sonchiriya is its earnest storytelling. The film has many characters, but they all tie together to portray the struggle against oppression and corruption. Sonchiriya is a tale of rebels who have banded together against persecution, but it is also a story of a single good man, an underdog, and his quest to do the right thing, when the lines between right and wrong have blurred. The film has poignant moments when you really feel the desperation and abject misery of the characters. And then there’s the dark humor which masks the harsh reality underneath.

All the actors are absolutely fabulous, and make this intense, gripping film as gorgeous as it is. Kudos also to director Chaubey for making this beautifully atmospheric, homegrown Western.

Posted in 2019, bollywood, directors, drama, passes Bechdel Test, rating-PG13, recommended, social issues | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Kesari (releases 21st March 2019)

Posted on March 16, 2019 by amodini

Kesari is a historical movie about the battle of Saragarhi (1897). It stars Akshay Kumar, Parineeti and per IMDB Bhagyashree (of Maine Pyar Kiya fame)!! I haven’t see any of director Anurag Singh’s previous work, so am crossing my fingers 🙂

Posted in 2019, bollywood, drama, historical, New Films, Previews | Comments Off

Movie Review : Badla (2019)

Posted on March 9, 2019 by amodini

Rating : 3/5
Genre : Mystery
Year : 2019
Running time : 2 hours
Director : Sujoy Ghosh
Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh, Tony Luke, Manav Kaul
Kid rating : PG-13

I went in with high expectations for Badla given that the director was Sujoy Ghosh but am disappointed. I’d have expected a smarter film from him, and Badla is barely average, if that.

Naina Sethi (Pannu), an up and coming businesswoman stands accused of the murder of her boyfriend photographer Arjun Joseph (Luke). Her husband and child leave her when the affair comes to light. She decides to hire highly recommended lawyer Badal Gupta (Bachchan), and the both of them sit together to form a good defense for her.

And that is pretty much how the movie goes – it is two people – Naina and Badal – talking. In conversation Naina relates the details of the case, so a lot of the story is told via flashback-style enactments. Gupta stresses that he wants the absolute truth from Naina, but it is a game of cat and mouse with her hiding facts and he attempting to pry them from her. They conjecture about various scenarios, some from her viewpoint and others from his counter viewpoint, he playing devils’s advocate. Naina proclaims her innocence; Gupta is not quite convinced.

So Badla is conversation heavy. Which in itself is not problematic, but the film drags its feet. The pace is slow and plodding especially for a movie of the murder-mystery genre. I actually nodded off a couple of times in the first half, but I really woke up once Gupta started pointing out flaws in Naina’s story and coming up with alternative scenarios. I wish the enactment of the scenarios had been swifter and speedier. A lot of the first half focused on Gupta sermonizing and repetitively demanding the truth and Naina professing her sainthood – not very interesting to watch again and again.

The characters lack depth. Naina could have been an interesting character – there were a lot of places Ghosh could have gone with her – but he doesn’t. She just isn’t very well fleshed out. Badal Gupta is just so smarmy and smug, and need I point out the filmi name? Then there were these implausible sounding scenes – like the one where Rani Kaur (Amrita Singh), an absolute stranger, gabs on very friendly terms to Arjun. Yes, the locale is Glasgow and one might argue that the heart gets fonder for apne log in pardes, but still!

The ending was predictable but director Ghosh makes it worse with Bollywood-esque drama and rubbing the climactic plot-twist in our faces. A cleaner, sparer, subtler ending was called for instead. Pannu and Bachchan can both deliver fine performances (recall Manmarziyaan, Pink) given the right direction so I have to blame Ghosh for their mediocre performance in Badla. By comparison, Kahaani was a far better film, and while Ghosh can hold his own in short films (e.g. Ahalya) there’s some ways to go before he can deliver a sophisticated edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Badla is a step in the right direction for Bollywood where who-dun-its are few and far between, but I can’t quite recommend it.

Kidwise: Violence – this is a murder mystery!

Posted in 2019, bollywood, directors, mystery, rating-PG13, suspense, thriller | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Badla (releases 8th March 2019)

Posted on March 2, 2019 by amodini

A mystery at long last! It is directed by Sujoy Ghosh who directed both Kahaani and it’s sequel and the very interesting short Ahalya, from Large Short Films.

Posted in 2019, bollywood, crime, directors, mystery, New Films, Previews, suspense | 1 Comment

Movie Review : Kedarnath (2018)

Posted on February 23, 2019 by amodini

Rating : 2.5/5
Genre : Romance
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 25 minutes
Director : Abhishek Kapoor
Cast : Sushant Singh Rajput, Sara Ali Khan, Nishant Dahiya, Pooja Gor, Nitish Bharadwaj, Alka Amin, Sonali Sachdeva
Kid rating : G

Kedarnath seems not of this world. Not surreal like Zero, but like a throwback to the 1980s. I mean, it is not like everyone should not have the freedom to make all the old-fashioned cinema they want to, but really? Another jaded inter-faith love story about a Hindu girl falling for the local Muslim porter? Kill me now.

The specifics: she’s frisky Mandakini aka Mukku. He’s the staid Mansoor Khan, a “pithoo” or porter helping ferry pilgrims up the steep hillsides of Kedarnath. She takes a shine to him, and he, after much ignoring and rebuffing her flirtatious advances, accedes. Since daddy’s a priest and the upholder of “dharm” there is a bunch of hai-tauba at Mukku’s romantic entanglements with a non-Hindu guy. Just when the young lovers are being separated comes the flood.

Kedarnath is a dull, dull film. It offers no freshness, no new angle to a clichéd storyline. Even the dialogs are so 80s, so ghisa-pita! There was a story hidden behind Mukku’s seemingly outrageous behavior but the film doesn’t dwell on it too much. I would have liked to see more of Brinda, Mukku’s sister’s (played by talented Pooja Gor) story – there is a segway into that, but the film doesn’t go into much detail. There could have been some exploration of the relationship between the sisters, but that is given short shrift.

Perky Sara Ali Khan does bring some pep to Kedarnath, but she really doesn’t fit the small-town girl profile. Sushant Singh Rajput, a good actor, is wasted in his poorly sketched out character. He is still very good as unassuming Mansoor, and I really felt for his character.

Nishant Dahiya (of the cute teenie-bopper romance Mujhse Fraandship Karoge) has aged into an almost-gauntness, and plays Mukku’s shrewd, family-ordained suitor. Another actor to note is Sonali Sachdev who is pretty impressive in limited screen time as Mukku’s harried mom.

What I did like about the film were the songs, especially Qaafirana. The rest of it is average bordering on deathly boredom. Love might be a pilgrimage (per the title) but this movie was a slog!

Kidwise: Clean.

Posted in 2018, bollywood, drama, rating-G, romance | Comments Off

Movie Review : Gully Boy (2019)

Posted on February 16, 2019 by amodini

Rating : 4/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2019
Running time : 2.5 hours
Director : Zoya Akhtar
Cast : Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Vijay Raaz, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Amruta Subhash, Vijay Verma, Kalki Koechlin, Sheeba Chaddha
Kid rating : PG

I convinced my son to come see Gully Boy with us because he, like most desi teenagers, is into rap these days – that was the USP, but I was unprepared for how much rap there was in this movie. He liked the movie more than I did 🙂 . I did like Gully Boy, but not in the way I adored Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

Murad (Singh) is a chauffeur’s son from Dharavi. His father (Raaz) has taken a much-younger, second wife, which is causing chaos and drama in the small chawl they all live in together. The incessant poverty, the constant beat-down from his parents (keep your head down, a servant’s son will always remain a servant), the ubiquitous classism, the societal strictures preventing him from acknowledging his love for Safeena (Bhatt) are taking a toll on rebellious Murad. He finds an outlet for his pent-up anguish in poetry which, on encouragement from MC Sher (Chaturvedi), he voices through rap.

Gully Boy is pretty intense. Zoya Akhtar really drives home the grittiness with realistic dialog, locales and genuine depth to the characters. Ranveer as Murad is Ranveer as we’ve never seen him before: unsmiling and unvarnished – shorn of all his accoutrements and his trademark swagger (what a difference from Simmba!). We see him, another poorly-dressed lad on the street, backpack, earphones in place. We see him at home, head bent, quietly taking the slaps his father deals him for his uppity-ness. Later we see him rebel, and root for him as he starts giving it back, throwing his father’s belittling words back in his face (“Will someone else tell me who I am?”), and we cheer.

Gully Boy, despite my aversion to rap, works because it is an underdog story – and we love those. It works because Zoya Akhtar has the courage and the sensitivity to portray a bunch of issues (classism, poverty, powerlessness of women), subtly tying them into the fabric of Murad’s story. And it works because of Murad’s character, who’s got the gumption to battle the soul-destroying chorus of “you are nothing”, and dream on.

The cherry on the top are these beautifully done scenes set to some sublime poetry. My favorite was set to “Doori”, as Murad chauffers his employer’s daughter in her expensive car, and she weeps for an unknown reason. He stonily looks ahead, the faceless servant, unable to cross the class barrier to ask or to console. There is another scene set to “Ek Hee Raasta” which questions the rat-race; a portrayal of truth like no other.

Accolades to the actors – Ranveer and Alia and Vijay Raaz, known faces all, are terrific. Film debutant Chaturvedi as Sher and marathi actress Amruta Subhash as Murad’s mother are fantastic. Vijay Verma (we saw him in Pink, remember?) as small-time con-man Moeen drove me to tears. Kalki as Berklee-educated musician Sky is as always, just so right. Chaddha, whom we saw recently in Badhai Ho, is impeccable as Safeena’s mom.

I find Gully Boy a tad lacking in the entertainment department, but was still drawn in and engrossed by Murad’s story. Recommended.

Kidwise: Some adult situations, some lip locks, but that’s about it.

Posted in 2019, bollywood, coming of age, directors, drama, music, rating-PG, recommended | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Gully Boy (releases 14th Feb, 2019)

Posted on February 9, 2019 by amodini

Zoya Akhtar directs Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in Gully Boy. Quite a different tack for Akhtar because she has in the past directed films like “Zindagi na Milegi Dobara” and “Dil Dhadakne Do” (both of while I loved) which are not quite as gritty as this one looks to be.

Posted in 2018, bollywood, directors, New Films, Previews | Comments Off

Movie Review : Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (2019)

Posted on February 3, 2019 by amodini

Rating : 2/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2019
Running time : 2 hours
Director : Shelly Chopra Dhar
Cast : Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Seema Pahwa, Brijendra Kalra, Regina Cassandra
Kid rating : PG-13

With Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga I was expecting a lazy, ghisa-pita jaded tale of Bollywoodian romance. What I got was way worse.

If you’ve been listening to the buzz around this film, you already know that this is a lesbian love story gone mainstream. Amazingly “mainstream” and “lesbian” in the Bollywood context aren’t oxymorons anymore. So yes, ELKDTAL is a brave film for even venturing down this path. Unfortunately for us, brave does not equal watchable.

Sweety (Kapoor Ahuja) from Moga, Punjab, is a closeted lesbian. Brother Babloo “Virji” (Duhan), a stickler for patriarchal norms, suspects as much, and keeps a close eye on “abnormal” Sweety. When he realizes that she’s been making trips to Delhi to meet her female lover Kuhu (Cassandra), he concocts a story about her being in love with a Muslim man and exhorts their father, businessman Balbir Chaudhary (Kapoor), to marry her off to a “nice Hindu boy”. And then . . .

Early on in the film, in the dim confines of a theater watching a play, Sweety opines that the play she’s watching is flawed – it “has no feel”. This is ironical because this is pretty much the way I feel about ELKDTAL – no feel, no depth, no nuance. This film is superficial in the extreme; it broaches the topic of homosexuality but once broached doesn’t know what to do with it. Another problem is that for an “empowering” film, this has its female protagonist unable to help herself – she needs male assistance to even speak her mind! The film also implies that the female point-of-view is not enough – it must be accepted and validated by a male one to pass muster.

The film’s characters apart from Sweety and Sahil are run-of-the-mill Yashraj stereotypes – the beaming Beeji, the jovial father figure Balraj, swagger-filled Virji, bantering, adoring servants. The characters though are ill-defined, especially Sweety’s and Kuhu’s. Their relationship is not really shown too much, so it’s hard feeling for them. There were some moving scenes depicting a father’s love, and one to-be-remembered dialog from Anil Kapoor where he says that homosexuality is inborn, and has nothing to do with western culture.

Sonam is very weak as Sweety. She fails to portray the mental tumult, loneliness of a closeted lesbian; a few angsty glances and some hand-wringing doesn’t quite cut it. I don’t give her all the blame (director Dhar must share) – after all she was marvelous in Delhi-6.

ELKDTAL is insipid and slow-paced; I actually nodded off in the first half, the husband had to prod me awake. I wish that it had a rousing screenplay and a fiery, anger-filled heroine instead of this weak, wilting one to lead the charge. This could have been a much better film, if it had decided to delve deeper, speak plainer and actually point some fingers (a la Pink) instead of just whitewashing the solution as “acceptance”. Acceptance doesn’t come about all of a sudden, one fine day. It takes time, an open mind, and the ability to countenance a different point of view – a truth this film seems to be unable to speak or address.

Kidwise: Clean. Talk of homosexuality.

Posted in 2019, bollywood, drama, rating-PG13, social issues, women | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Sonchiriya (release 8th Feb, 2019)

Posted on February 3, 2019 by amodini

From the director of films like “Udta Punjab” and “Ishqiya” comes Sonchiriya. It has a fabulous star cast: Manoj Bajpai, Ranvir Shourie, Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar and Sushant Singh Rajput. I’m looking forward to this one!

Posted in 2018, bollywood, crime, directors, drama, New Films, Previews | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (releases 1st Feb, 2019)

Posted on January 26, 2019 by amodini

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (what a mouthful) stars Sonam Kapoor and Anil Kapoor, real-life daughter-dad playing screen daughter-dad. Also starring is Rajkummar Rao. Now, while I think Rao is a fabulous actor, I’m kinda surprised to see him getting these mainstream hero-type roles, because let’s face it : the man is no Adonis.

The film is resplendent with the smell of Punjab, sarson ke khet, and the golden plot fallback for the lazy Bollywood film-maker : getting daughters married off! Seems a little ghisa-pita to me, but let’s see. Fingers crossed!

P.S.: The tile is from the song of “1942: A Love Story” which starred Anil Kapoor and Manisha Koirala.