Movie Reviews

Produced by legendary Hollywood actor Robert De Niro’s daughter Drena De Niro, Karma Aur Holi (earlier titled Karma Confessions and Holi) is not your typical NRI flick that tries to force the message down your throat about how better India is than the USA or how one is struggling to find his own identity in the land of Uncle Sam, but then it is again not a very engaging film that can be you focused for its two hour running time.

Manohar (Madhavan) with his wife (Neetu Chandra) shifts to a new address with his entire joint family comprising of his brother and his wife, their two kids, mom (Poonam Dhillon) and a college going younger sister. All the female folks in the family are hooked on to watching daily Saas Bahu soaps on TV. But bizarre things start happening to Manohar after shifting to this new address – 13B like the lift never working whenever he boards it alone, his mobile phone clicking distorted images of his self, his bathroom bulb being constantly lit up despite him putting it off and him not being able to hammer a simple nail in the room of his house walls.

Sitting through this inane film is an absolute torture and one should consider himself lucky he comes out of the hall without a headache. The film throws together an apology of a plot, hamming actors, plenty of double innuendo dialogues, badly picturised songs and a director who doesn’t know his job. If this all has not put off you already about the film then read ahead what this mega torture is all about.

Delhi 6 is a delightful musical run through the Hindu and Muslim cultures of Old Delhi as seen through the eyes of protagonist Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) who comes to India to fulfill the desire of his terminally ill Daadi (Waheeda Rehman) to spend the last days of her life in her hometown. As Roshan after a brief culture shock, tries to understand the complexities of relations that kept his people apart from each other as well as close to each other, he slowly gets attached to Bittu (Sonam Kapoor) and the chemistry grows, which is very convincingly directed using rich background music and believable day-to-day situations.

«Never before has a film from (India) been accepted like this and embraced in the West, and you know, been awarded with these sorts of accolades» - this was how the young protagonist of Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel, reacted at to AP's queries at the Premiere of the film in Mumbai. And this really is the case with the film which is now among the Oscar toppers and has four Golden Globes under its belt.

Billu is a story of a down to earth village barber, Billu (Irfaan Khan). A man of principles, he is not willing to give up his values come what may even if it means his children are thrown out of the school or his earnings taking a beating. While his wife (Lara) understands him and stands by him during his tough times, his children forever make fun of him. As Billu is struggling making two ends meet, a film unit visits his village to shoot a movie and with the unit comes superstar Sahir Khan (SRK) Billu's childhood buddy.

The film revolves around the infamous sealing issue that had been a hot issue in India's capital city, Delhi in 2007-08. It tells the story of Sandip Kapur (Manoj Bajpai) who heads an advertising agency. He is already facing a demanding life when to add more trouble to his life his agency is sealed by the Muncipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

Maya (Raima Sen) lives with her hubby Vikram (Arbaaz Khan) and their child Priya Now leading the life of a bored housewife, Maya had once aspirations of becoming a singer. But she gave up her singing to take care of her family but is faced with a cheating and complaining husband. But following some inspirational words from her neighbor, Mrs.Mathur (Suhasini Mulay) Maya begins seeing her ideal man turn to reality.