Happy New Year (2014)

Shah Rukh Khan is the newest member of the ‘Crap Crore Club’. Aamir with Dhoom 3, Salman with Kick, Hrithik with Bang Bang and now this spectacle which lacks soul or originality.

Am going to keep it short. SRK looks scary and the macho image looks forced. Deepika is gifted with accents, she entertains like she did in Chennai Express and looks fab. They all have convenient back stories. Boman plays a 50 year old Parsi with a few ticks. Sonu Sood looks great and does a decent job, while Abhishek shouldn’t have agreed to the not-so-funny puking. Vivaan Shah makes a confident debut.

Needless to say common sense was left out, focusing on scenes and songs strung together to hopefully entertain. Some unexpected laughs did escape my mouth, but overall the long length and illogical proceedings made it tiresome. Dubai looks great.

If you haven’t got enough of Reality Dance Shows on TV, watch this.

1.5/5

Dhoom 3 (2013)

Sorry this review is late, it’s the last one of the year and I could have saved a lot of people time and money, but I guess some divine force was protecting me, until yesterday.

Aamir Khan mentioned he did this film because he liked the script. I would like to see ‘said script’ and ask him squarely, “Why did you do this film?” Frankly I am shocked that he agreed to do it. I guess screen time was the carrot they dangled in front of him. Batman himself would be envious of the motorbike that Aamir has, and his set up would rival that of Iron Man.

The film was flat from the beginning. Basic story telling had taken a back seat. Where was the complication? The motive was so weak. There were fundamental, gaping holes in the screen play, logic was not meant to take a back seat here, but it did. The heist and everything about it lacked reality.

Touching the 300 crore mark as I write this, it makes you wonder why such films do well and other really good ones don’t. The film was well shot, the choreography and spectacle scenes were great to watch. But you don’t take anything home with you, except the feeling that you have been cheated. Aamir is expected to perform well, but here it seemed like a clear recipe for spinning money, which worked. The action scenes are laughable though the effects are decent, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Aamir has done better and more varied work in the past, this time round it was average. Abhishek and Uday are mere props. Katrina has 3 songs and 3 scenes I think, great dancer, that’s it. She also had a hell of a time at ‘the wake’. A joke you will get if you sit right till the end. In which case you also have my condolences.

2/5