'OMKARA' Movie Review

Othello is a tragic love story written by William Shakespeare and Omkara is the film adaptation of this story directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. The movie is based upon the theme of deep love and the deep belief of loyalty amongst the lovers. We can see the dark side of love in this movie. This movie is set in the backdrop of Uttar Pradesh. Ajay Devgan plays the role of Omkara or Omi (Othello in Shakespeare's 'Othello') who believes that his ladylove Kareena Kapoor as Dolly (Desdemona) is betraying him and so he grows suspicious though she was innocent.

If someone puts a doubt in our mind and we believe them more than our eyes, that tiny piece of doubt cab damage everything. Omkara is the leader of a band of outlaws who work for an MP. His friend and his right hand is Langda Tyagi (Iago). Omkara is chosen to be fielded for an assembly seat and Kesu is chosen as his successor in place of Langda Tyagi. Tyagi gets deeply hurt by this and plans to frame Kesu. He plans a conspiracy. Be fills poison in Omkara's mind that Dolly is having an affair with Kesu. Out of rage, he kills his beloved without clarifying anything. Later, Langda's wife, Indu reveals everything that this all was a plan to defame Kesu and Dolly was innocent but it was too late now. Omkara kills himself out of guilt. The movie is filled with emotions like love, jealousy, possessiveness, betrayal and destruction.

'AISHA' Movie Review

 Directed by Rajshree Ojha, Aisha is a movie based on the book 'Emma' written by Jane Austen. The sub-title is Don't be Cupid! Sonam Kapoor plays the role of Aisha, a young, rich and pretty girl from Delhi. She is unsteady in nature and so her interests keep changing everyday. Her current passion is match making and she starts working on her friend Randhir and a small town girl Shefali. Aisha totally changes Shefali's look and tries to bring them together but love doesn't generally follow the rules and designs. Abhay Deol plays the role of Arjun who is her neighbor, friend as well as his enemy (as he never minds chiding about her faults). She herself is attracted towards Dhruv and in the middle part of the movie, she hurts Arjun, Shefali and Pinky with her silly nature, ego and her attempts to get her own way. But in the end, she realizes her fault and declares her love for Arjun and finally everyone lives happily.

In the movie, we can witness no major hurdles to cross, no parental objections, no major conflicts to solve as it generally happens in most of the love stories. The director has remained faithful to the novel. In today's time, most of the relationships are so complicated but here, the plot is simple and so is the story.

"Kai Po Che" Movie Review

 

"Kai Po Che" is directed by Abhishek Kapoor. It is based on Chetan Bhagat's book titled as "The 3 mistakes of my life." It explores one of the most cherished human relationships i.e. friendship. This social drama explores the life in Gujarat which includes the 2001 devastating earthquake, 2002 Godhra riots between Hindus and Muslims and India- Australia test-series.

It is a story about the lives of three friends who open a cricket shop and training center together. Ram Kumar Yadav as Govind is a thoughtful and a serious person and is business minded who helps in maintaining the accounts. He becomes a maths tutor for Ishaan's sister and later falls in love with her. Sushant Singh Rajput as Ishaan is a short tempered and a gifted cricketer who commits himself to coach young persons. Amit Sadh as Omi is a good natured person whose maternal uncle is a local politician and helps him to set up the shop. They open a sports goods store and a cricket training center in Ahmedabad (their hometown). It is an incredible piece of historical fiction. We can witness the devastation caused in 2001 Gujarat earthquake. They are left without food or shelter. Their shop gets destroyed and they are left in heavy debt. When he is unable to pay the damages and heavy loan, Omi gets involved in his Uncle's party and gets into politics completely. His parents get executed in the communal riots and this is the point where their friendship is tested again. Ishaan discovers a child's talent of cricket and he tries to convince the boy's father to get him trained at the cricket center and nurture his talent.

The end is also tragic where we can see the Godhra riots between Hindus and Muslims where thousands died and it also impacted the life of three friends. This movie covers multiple topics like violence, revenge, forgiveness and politics.

'2 States' movie review

 

It's great to be back after a long time. It's time for a movie review!!

The movie is a bollywood release titled as '2 states' which shows two different cultures of India collaborating to Unity in diversity. This movie is based on Chetan Bhagat's book with the same title. If we talk about the performance of the actors, it was great as they put real efforts to bring the best shots and recorded a real story from a printed book.  The story is told from the male protagonist's point of view. Krish is a boy who is knowledgeable, aware of reality and his ambition and hopes to be a writer someday. He is raised by an overbearing Punjabi mother and an alcoholic father. Ananya is a middle class Tamil Brahmin girl from Chennai who is full of ambition and energy. Arjun Kapoor as Krish and Alia Bhatt as Ananya play as a couple whose romantic story revolves around them smoothly until their parents are introduced to each other.

They decided that they won't get married till they get their parent's consent. They face a tough time in battling with their parents as both are from different cultures and so their thinking doesn't match. Ronit Roy makes a special appearance as Krish's father and makes the climax interesting. There are many sad moments one of which is when they both breakup and stop contacting each other but also can't live without each other. This moment is shot with the song 'Chandaniya'. There are some funny moments too when Ananya attends a wedding and teaches the groom a lesson as the groom and his family demand for dowry. We can also see a blend of two different cultures (Punjabi and South Indian).

The scene I liked the most is when Krish proposes marriage to Ananya and her family with four gold rings saying, "mai ap sab se shadi karna chahta hu" (I want to get married to all of you) and this is the  moment when her family accepts him. In the end, both of them get married and this scene is followed by a song "man mast magan." The shehnai adds the freshness to the song and we can't resist listening to it. The message is clear in the movie that true love knows no boundaries, states, communities and cultures and it has a sole intention that is to bring people together to a time called forever.

THE CLASS OF 83 MOVIE REVIEW

 

The Class of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police is directed by Anurag Kashyap adapted from S Hussain Zaidi's book on Mumbai crime and Underworld. This book is a critique on the encounter specialists of the Mumbai Police Force.

Vijay Singh, an honest police officer is the Dean of the Officer's Training School in Nashik. He has been given punishment posting there. He is haunted by a failed operation against a gangster Kalsekar and secondly by the death of his wife, Sudha. Both these events have scared him emotionally. He chooses five underperforming students for this operation who are well known for their friendship, truth and loyalty namely Pramod Shukla, Vishnu Varde, Aslam Khan, Lakshman Jadhav and Janardan Surve. Along with them, the training inspector Mangesh Dixit and DCP Raghav Desai are aware of this plan. Raghav Desai helps him to form an off-the-records team specializing in encounter killings. Some time later, rivalry over encounter credits and lure for money tears the team apart.

This movie gives a feel of 1980s Mumbai as we can see cars like Fiat and Ambassador, BEST buses, mills, newspaper office and printing area. Vijay Singh is shown using a machine gun to kill the gangster. Vijay Singh is shown as a brooding mentor who is constantly battling his inner demons. He does not speak much but his eyes convey every dialogue. In the end, the gangster is killed and the four officers are held guilty in the court and get sentenced for a few years.

'A SUITABLE BOY' Movie Review

 

'A Suitable Boy' book was published in 1993 by Vikram Seth. It's setup is of 1950s when India got free from British rule recently. It showed how people were trying to adjust in the new environment. The people were stuck between twin forces i.e. tradition and modernity which were opposite to each other. This showed a world full of people looking inward and outward, having one foot in the past and one in the present.

Andrew Davies has done the screenplay adaptation of A Suitable Boy. He previously has done many adaptations including Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' (2016) and Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables' (2017). These adaptations have been done for BBC so the characters are shown speaking English.

The story revolves around Lata, a college student. Her mother wishes her to marry a suitable boy. She also has three suitors namely Amit, Haresh Khanna, and Kabir Durrani. The other side of the story revolves around her brother-in-law, Maan, who has an affair with an older Muslim woman Saeeda. We can see caste and religion based politics, capitalism, socialism, industrialization, fall of grace of the landed gentry, and other sundry concerns of young India. This series doesn't show India directly as a land of heat, dust, strange odors and snake charmers but gives a hint about all these indirectly. When we watch the series, we can relate it to Jane Austen's heroines as Lata shuttles between her suitors. Whereas Maan is stuck between love and infatuation. Lata is at first shown averse to the idea of marriage but then grows to consider it after feeling the need of a companion.

(THE WORD SUITABLE IN BLUE CONTAINS LINK OF THE TRAILER. YOU CAN CLICK ON THE LIN TO WATCH THE TRAILER)

MOVIE REVIEW OF 'CHHALAANG'

 

The movie Chhalaang is produced by Luv Ranjan starring Nushrat Bharucha and Rajkumar Rao. Neelima (Neelu), a computer teacher is shown striking a blow for women rights, gender equality and sports in this movie. The film is set in a small town of Haryana. Mahendra's (Montu) father is a respected lawyer in this town who uses his influence to get a job for his son. Initially, he is shown as a slacker who eats samosas and drinks tea in the PT period rather than doing his actual job. He became a PT teacher because he couldn't become anything else in his life. (Personally, I also have heard this thing especially for teachers that "when you are not able to do any other job or you are bored at home, you become a teacher." I don't think this is the reality as when I was a child, I always dreamt of becoming a teacher and I finally I fulfilled my dream. So, people should stop thinking this as not anyone becomes a teacher easily. We face many hurdles.) Montu likes to spend the day in the company of his Guru, Professor Shukla who teaches Hindi. They both keep eating samosa and drink tea. In the evening, Montu accompanies his childhood friend Dimpy and both of them keep consuming alcohol in large amounts.

             Montu's life takes a turn when Neelu joins school as a computer teacher. At the same time, Inder Mohan Singh, another sports teacher gets appointed as Montu's senior. Inder and Neelu both know each other from the past and Montu has a crush on Neelu. Montu gets hurt when he comes to know that they both knew each other. He feels jealous and claims that he is a better sports teacher than Inder and challenges him for a competition. The winner would stay while the loser will resign. Now when the selection begins, Montu's younger brother is chosen in Inder's team. Montu is forced to choose the studious students including the girls. Neelu forces him to select girls as well. In the end, Montu's team wins despite the heavy odds.

         Inder is shown as a highly disciplined and motivated sports teacher who takes his job seriously. He is arrogant but later accepts defeat with grace. The message is conveyed in a playful, non-preachy manner that sports are as much important for the growth of children as studies and this should be inculcated right from the initial years.

(To watch the trailer of this movie, click on the word Chhalaang written in blue in the first line)