Saturday, April 12, 2008

U Me Aur Hum - 3/5



Producer , Director and Story: Ajay Devgan
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Kajol,Divya Dutta, Karan Khanna, Isha Sherwani
Music: Vishal Bhardwaj


It was a tough choice between Ajay Devgan's "U me aur hum" and the Roshan's "Krazzy 4" for a friday nite show. Thanks to the concluding school and college exams that has lead to the hoard of hindi releases in last couple of weeks. My first choice was "U Me aur hum" as was expecting a refreshing love story after a series of dramas and comedies. Also the return of Kajol to the silverscreen after a long break has built up more anxiety.

Coming to the story, "U Me Aur Hum" starts of with a refreshing love track between Ajay(Phsychiatrist) and Piya(Waitress) who meet each other in a cruise. The love turns to marriage after Ajay's attempts to change himself according to piya's wishlist. Ajay's tough time with his lady love starts after Alzheimer's disease strikes piya which causes regular momentory memory loss.




Ajay and Kajol bring in their intense performances well supported by Sumeet raghavan( doctor friend) and Divya Dutta. The story to some extent has been inspired by Ron Howard's "The Beautiful Mind" and Peter segal's "50 First Dates". The movie has its share of flaws in terms of elongated emotional sequences with extensive use of Glycerine. Except for the exceptionally good title track and "Jee le", Vishal Bhardwaj's music is a loser in comparison to that of Omkaara, Maachis, Satya and Maqbool. The Background score by Monty turns out to be an average work.

Other notable things in the movie worth mentioning are the brilliant cinematography by Amees bajaj and good direction by Ajay Devgan himself.Ajay has shown a high level of maturity with the use of innovative camera angles that are usually seen in RGV's and vishal's movies.

As a whole "U Me Aur Hum" is a good refreshing love story with some great performance by the lead pair.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Jalsa (Telugu) - 3/5



Writer & Director : Trivikram srinivas
cast: Pavan kalyan, Illeana D'cruz, Parvathi melton, kamlini mukherjee, Prakash raj ,Mukesh Rishi and Makrand Deshpande (Guest appearance)
Music and Background score : Devi Sri Prasad
Budget: 30 crores INR



After a delay due to Digital intermediation process the much eagerly awaited movie has finally hit the screens across the globe(India, US, UK, Germany) on 2nd April. Also its been quite a long wait of close to 2yrs for Pavan kalyan fans.



Within no time all the shows for the week in PVR, mumbai were sold out and fortunately i managed to book one for me in advance for the first day evening show. The expectations were high after Trivikram's Blockbuster (Athadu) with Mahesh babu and superb music by Devi sri prasad.

The experiece of Watching a telugu movie in mumbai was no different with crowd whistling and clapping rite from the moment the screen showed the censor certificate. The movie starts with narration of the characters by Mahesh babu ( Now one set of fans start whistling listening to the voice of their favorite star). Continuing from the much celebrated introductory scene of power star, the movie takes a romantic path. Bhagmati (Illeana) and 'Jo' as in Jotsana (Parvathi) fall in love with Sanjay sahu who is a PG student of Osmania University when he rescues the leading ladies from a group of rowdies. Damodar Reddy(Mukesh) a factionist is in search of sanjay and the movie reveals the past life of sanjay.



First half of the movie has a perfect blend of refreshing romance and typical humour of trivikram. The movie tries to bring in seriousness of sanjay's character only to deviate to much from the love track. The second half scores low in comparison as the director tries to give a social, political angle to the story with minimal effectiveness. The comedy tracks of sunil, brahmanandam, prakash and pavan himself bring in laughter at frequent intervals. Coming to the script there isnt much depth or clear direction and lack of detail can be noticed in many scenes during the second half.



Pavan kalyan has done a good job with his humurous accent and is more presentable in the designer attire. Coming to the heroines, Illeana shares majority of the screen time among the three. Parvathi melton adds the extra oomph quotient and Kamileeni has a very brief role.

Coming to the technical department, Guhan(cinematographer) and sreekar prasad(editor) have done a marvellous job which is reflected by the rich and colourful frames. As usual devi sri prasad has maintained his consistency with splendid music. Trivikram has succeeded in his humour magic but could not improvise on the story (where athadu turns out to be better).



'Jalsa' as a whole is a good entertainer and specially a breather to all the pavan kalyan fans. With summer vacations starting and no other major flicks in competition , the movie is going to become a definite commercial success.