Sunday, August 2, 2009

New York (Hindi, 2009)

Starring: John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Irrfan Khan
Director: Kabir Khan
Rating: ****** (Excellent)


You rarely come across really good Hindi films. Or may be, only commercial films are available in the South and you don’t normally get much choice. It gives you immense pleasure when out of these majority soap operas, you accidentally come across such excellent attempts.

The story is completely set up in the US. Omar, played by Neil, is picked up by the FBI and detained for arms found in his taxi. With the pressure from the FBI Officer ( Irrfan Khan) , he agrees to work as their agent and explore more about the family of Samir (John Abraham) and Maya ( Katrina Kaif). Omar was their college friend and knew both of them very closely. He loved Maya then and when he found that Maya actually loved Sameer, he left the college, leaving their contacts. The rest of the story is about how Neil finds them, stays with the family and tries to explore what his bosses are looking for. The story moves at an excellent pace and keeps you on toes. It takes a different turn with the interval .

This was shot entirely in the US and could be easily mistaken for a Hollywood film. The film shows you how circumstances creates a terrorist. The torture scenes are horrific and takes a dig at the ways American FBI follows hypocrisy, advocating human rights to the external world and at the same time, resorting to inhuman treatment to the Muslims in the name of suspected terrorism.

Bhagavan (Malayalam, 2009)

Director- Prashanth Mambully
Actors- Mohanlal , Lakshmi Gopalaswamy, Sudheesh, Leena, Lalu Alex etc
Camera- Lokanathan
Rating- Poor


The Mumbai terrorist attack and the rumors that they had entered Camah Hospital at Mumbai must have ignited the minds who had developed this story line into a two-hour Malayalam movie. But it failed to raise this to a suspense thriller as the team expected. The worst fact is that it used to test the patience of the viewers.

The factors about this film - completing the shoot in 17 hours , simultaneously shot by 5 cameras, and completed in 90 shots-may be the only interesting factors, to the producer. After seeing this film, one really wonders whether such tight schedule is really required to come out for a poor quality film- in editing, story line, creating suspense and the climax.

Super star Mohanlal as Dr .Balagopal, is a famous Gynec and has to treat the wife of State’s Home Minister. But a terrorist group chooses this time to take the Minister as a hostage. The film deals how the doctor, with the help of commandos, helps the Minister and manages to free the hospital and its inmates.

There is nothing much for even Mohanlal to do in this film. The film disappears faster from the theatres as it arrives, which is what these kinds of films deserve.

My advice to the director is to watch another contemporary Malayalam movie which arrived without much ad- The Passenger- and try to learn how a story is developed into a complete thriller and how editing can help a realistic story line. We hope he will learn from his mistakes before attempting his next creation, thus helping the future producers.