Milenge Milenge (2010)

Nothing ruins my mood and Friday more than a bad movie and Milenge Milenge did exactly that! It made last year’s Kambakkht Ishq look like a masterpiece. At least that was fresh; this one’s just simply ancient. It’s one of those movies which are so sad that after a few scenes, you stop criticizing it and feel sad for the entire crew. The plot of Milenge Milenge revolves around a young girl, Priya [Kareena Kapoor], a complete romantic at heart who expects the love of her life to be a guy who falls into the category of a true good boy, one that doesn’t smoke, drink or lie. Priya gets to meet a tarot card reader [Kirron Kher] who tells Priya about her past and when Priya starts believing in her she tells her that Priya will meet her life partner in seven days at a foreign beach. She also tells her that he will be wearing seven different colors. Immy [Shahid Kapoor] is the exact opposite of what Priya has been looking for but interestingly he comes across her diary and reads what she is expecting in her partner.

He then starts posing like her dream mate, giving her a completely different picture of himself. Like in all Bollywood films, Priya gets attracted to Immy when they go to a festival in Bangkok city and they come closer to each other. Just when they were about to leave Priya finds out about Immy’s reality and they part ways. As clichéd as it might sound, Immy then changes into the man that Priya has always dreamed of while Priya has moved on in life and is in a relationship. The rest [as predictable as it might seem] is something you need to watch the film to find out.

I still haven’t been able to figure out why Satish Kaushik and Boney Kapoor decided to release this movie? I mean it’s understandable that they wanted to recover the production costs but they shouldn’t have at the cost of their reputation and name.

The major issue with Milenge Milenge is that it’s extremely old, which is why it can’t connect to the audience whereas it is very important for a movie to click with its audience. It was made for the youth; college students to be precise, but the college students it was made for graduated a while back. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was made for a completely different audience, with their language, their slang, their dressing styles and they have grown up now and hence cannot relate to Milenge Milenge. Today’s audience demands freshness, which is something Milenge Milenge clearly lacks.

Moreover, the screenplay is extremely clichéd – hopeless romantic girl, playboy guy meet and fall in love, guy hides his reality, girl finds out and then the guy suddenly changes altogether. We’ve seen it so many times that bearing it again one more time is just not possible. The music, done by Himmesh Reshammiya is passŽ and doesn’t really help either. Note that it was made at the time when Himmesh was quite the in thing. I doubt the youth listens to him now. The cinematography of Milenge Milenge is just typical and boring as well.

The chemistry between Kareena and Shahid is not something that produces spark on the screen but is not bad either. They are sweet together and probably the only reason why people would want to watch the film. Shahid Kapoor has done an average job, nothing compared to his recent roles though. He looks young and full of life but that’s not enough to rescue a sinking ship. Kareena looks young too but not as beautiful as she looks now. Justice hasn’t been done to Kareena’s wardrobe either.

In short Milenge Milenge tries to be funny at times but fails miserably. I thought China Town and Chupke Chupke were two disasters in which Kareena and Shahid worked together, now I know none of them was the real disaster. Watch this movie, only if you are craving more of the duo together. I assure you after this, you will never want to watch them together again. Also, a piece of advice, don’t spend money on the ticket, just watch it at home because it doesn’t even deserve the ticket price and I doubt you will be able to survive till the end – Hafsah Sarfraz

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Surinder Kapoor, Director – Satish Kaushik, Music Director – Himesh Reshammiya, Cast - Kareena Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Satish Shah, Delnaz Paul, Aarti Chabria, Kiron Kher, Himani Shivpuri, Satish Kaushik, Sarfaraz Khan, Panini Rajkumar

Badmaash Company (2010)

What do the box office results say about the Indian audience? When movies such as Badmaash Company fare well at the box office, and attract large audiences, what can one conclude about their taste in films?

Don’t get me wrong, the trailers were good enough to attract anyone easily: foreign location, beautiful babe, friends having a good time – that’s an easy enough formula to adhere to if the filmmakers want the movie to be watched by a lot of people.

Therefore the box office doesn’t really represent how good or bad the movie actually is; it only represents the amount of people that actually make their way to the cinemas to watch it.

That can be the only logical explanation, as one cannot understand why Badmaash Company would do so well otherwise. The movie opened to a good start, and earned fairly well. However the movie itself was not worth all the brouhaha.

The movie is about four friends who want to make it big. Well, honestly, it’s about one person who wants to make it big and gets help from his three friends. Therefore they con their way into success, where they’re living the high life. Eventually, karma hits them, and they fall with the same speed and impact, as when they were soaring high. Added with a bunch of songs shot in clubs and on the beach, some sizzling scenes between the two leads and the typical good-always-triumphs-over-bad ending, you have Badmaash Company in a nutshell.

However, the elements that were supposed to work for the movie are the reason why the movie failed. The plot could have worked, had everything else not been so forcefully added to the plate.

For instance, the unnecessary vulgarity, the crude dialogues, the lavish spending sprees – all seemed really fake and unnatural. They show Shahid as the mastermind behind all their cons, and the one determined to make it big one day and he aids the gang to their riches. But the irritating part was that after every con they pulled, they would show a scene (or a song) where they all would spend all their money on clothes and gambling and other useless things, and it all seemed so forced. Bollywood movies need to stop doing the overly glamourous thing when it isn’t looking right.

The second element which failed was the spice that was being forcefully making its way through onto the screen with the help of Anushka Sharma: the lady is fierce and strong, is an aspiring model, barely wears any clothes – basically everything that makes a woman sexy. Even then, her dialogues most of the times seemed trashy and totally unnecessary.

The second half of the movie sees a dramatic change in Shahid, when he takes the entire posse to Manhattan, and becomes so arrogant and conceited that he calls himself god at one point. What exactly was that about? He is a man with morals in the start, and after 60 minutes, we see him calling himself god, where the rest of the gang actually starts clapping and hooting afterwards!

The ending was based on a ridiculous scheme they come up with, which is absolutely honest, but clever. Therefore, he attempts to make up for all the wrong he has done by doing good. The earlier cons were actually believable, but the last final scheme which was supposed to be the biggest plan did not even make sense. So are they saying that big corporations in America are that stupid that they actually fell for the idiocy?

The most amusing part is that the movie was supposed to be a comedy, but there wasn’t a single joke that could have made anyone even smile if nothing else.

The magic of Yash Raj Films seems to be fading, as it continues to produce one failed production after another. Unfortunately, you can’t even watch these movies with your families anymore. Badmaash Company (if it absolutely must be watched out of curiosity) must not be viewed with children or young adults, or even parents for that matter. Otherwise be prepared to face some embarrassment, and quicken your reflexes to be able to quickly grab the remote control, and forward the scenes before harming anyone’s childhood – Manal Faheem Khan

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Comedy, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Aditya Chopra, Director – Parmeet Sethi, Music Director – Pritam Chakraborty, Cast - Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Meiyang Chang, Vir Das, Anupam Kher, Kiran Juneja, Pawan Malhotra, Jameel Khan

PaathShaala (2010)

Recent times in Bollywood have seen filmmakers producing movies which are based on the concept of the flawed education system which children and teenagers are trying to cope with. Some movies projected this concept realistically, managing to capture the hearts and minds of many people, and hopefully teaching some much needed lessons along the way. Taare Zameen Par, and the very popular 3 Idiots (which was the biggest hit of 2009) are some movies that dealt with children and students and their issues (and it is also a coincidence that both these movies had Aamir Khan either as the producer/ director or as the actor) However, here is a movie which tried to show the same message and concept, but went horribly wrong.

PaathShaala is about a school that has been the best in Mumbai for over 20 years, and suddenly, the Principal (played by Nana Patekhar) decides to bring about some changes to the system to try to update the school and its policies. However, in doing so, he lets some morons take over the school, who only care about raking in profits, rather than focusing on the quality of education. All hell breaks loose, when the students start rebelling, supported by the entire staff of the school, as nobody can understand why the principal is letting the school be run by some of the most insensitive people in the world.

Shahid Kapoor plays the character of the new teacher who tries to help students in confronting the Principal, who till the end doesn’t explain what suddenly came over him.

Ayesha Takia plays the character of the school’s nutritionist, who is very close to the children and loves them as her own.

Adding to these three stars, there is an entire cast of teachers who played important roles in the movie. However, here’s the first disappointment: All those who were watching the movie in hopes of watching Shahid Kapoor prance around the building are in for a shock as the movie isn’t based on him, and he doesn’t grace the screen as often as we would have liked him to.

However, while promoting the movie Shahid did say that he wasn’t the main protagonist and had a 60 minute screen-space in the movie. So that was something that should have been expected.

The second disappointment was the amount of over-acting (and under-acting) some of the actors were doing. There were scenes showing so much exaggeration, and for a movie trying to portray a message, some parts of it weren’t realistic at all.

For one, there was horrible injustice being done to the children, that’s fine. Good enough reason to feel bad for the children. But everyone in the movie was always crying! The kids were crying, the teachers would start crying, even their tough-as-a-rock sports coach was teary eyed, at things that seemed so over-exaggerated that one cannot imagine them actually happening in private schools anywhere. You finally lose sympathy for any character in the end, since the fact that nobody could act out these emotions properly, and the silly music that would start playing each time somebody was about to start crying!

Shahid Kapoor looked good in the movie, but only when you weren’t looking at his face. Never did he ever smile, or look angry, or upset. He always maintained a stiff, emotionless expression, and talked so softly and slowly, that you could fast forward the scene for a few seconds, and he would still be talking about the same thing when you resumed the movie.

Nana Patekhar played the cold, quiet subdued card just fine, and was an object of fear and respect amongst the students despite the fact that he barely ever got angry.

Ayesha Takia played her character just fine too, but it was nothing memorable, just like some of the other various child stars and the teaching staff, who were either over-doing it, or just not delivering anything.

The music wasn’t nicely done either, and was a pain to listen to during the movie. The random songs didn’t help either, as all they were doing was simply increasing the duration of the movie.

The movie tried to show a certain message. However, it was definitely not a good attempt. It did not entertain; it did not strike the right emotions in the viewer; it was way too lengthy and repetitive. The ending also was very clichéd, long and uninteresting.

It might touch some people, or at least some parts of it. But in general, the movie is something one can simply read about to know what happens in it. But going through the entire two and a half hours seem like an unfair punishment for anyone – Manal Faheem Khan

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Shaira Khan , Ahmed Khan, Director – Milind Ukey, Music Director – Hanif Shaikh, Cast - Nana Patekar, Sushant Singh, Ali Haji, Shraddha Arya, Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia Azmi, Swini Khara, Dwij Yadav, Avika Gor, Saurabh Shukla, Nassar Abdulla, Sanatan Modi, Anjan Shrivastava, Vicky Ahuja, Preeti Kopikar, Anjan Shrivastava, Sunny Singh, Shraddha Arya, Chetan Motiwala, Rishabh Jain, Sagar Kale