Sunday, May 31, 2009

Johny Mera Naam


In one of my earlier posts titled 'Jhonny Gaddar', I have reflected my lack of knowledge about Vijay Anand (as a thriller maestro) to whom the film was dedicated. Now, after watching Jhony Mera Naam and reading a few articles on him from different sources and knowing about his other films, I have understood why he is called thriller maestro.
Anyways, Johny Mera Naam is a suspense thriller released in 1970, a time when such movies were losing their postition in bollywood to the romantic Rajesh Khanna films. The late half of 60s saw many thriller dramas that are always remembered for their art. Johny Mera Naam is one amongst them, the other notables include Waqt, Gumnaam, Teesri Manzil, Mera Saaya, Humraaz, An Evening in Paris, Jewel Thief, Ittefaq and others. This film could also be kept under the other hit genre of hindi movies, the 'lost and found' ones which became a regular feature in indian cinemas in the mid and late 70s with the upsurge of Amitabh Bachchan.
Johny Mera Naam is a crime movie with revenge, romance, comedy, suspense every single thing that a movie needs to be a hit. I think it must be one of the very first occasions where a femme fatale gets a place in hindi cinema. The song 'Husn ke Lakhon rang' has a charecteristic essence of Vijay Anand's style with a most possible seductive voice of Asha Bhonsle.
Talking about the songs, Kalyanji-Anandji's music is good, the singing better and the picturisation special. Nothing about the film is complete without mentioning the extremely interesting type of picturisation of the song 'Pal Bhar ke liye'. Dev Anand running from one window to the other and Hema Malini closing each one of that and while all this camera rolling without cuts is beautiful, you really got to expect such unique song picturisation while watching Vijay Anand's movie. I can't resist myself from mentioning about 'Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar' being picturised wholly inside the Qutub Minar.
I.S. Johar also needs a mention here for his award winning triple role as comedian in this film. He comes in the film with packages and never fails to bring smile to the audience. For Hema Malini, being her 2nd film, it was very important and with her strong show here she deservedly made her place in bollywood and also in everyone's heart. Pran is as usual great and Prem Nath has looked as ferocious as he could rightly for his character.
All in all, a great movie to enjoy.............a must watch.......

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire


I got to watch the movie a few months ago and again re-watched it some days later. It was not because I liked the movie rather it was to search for somethimg that made this so 'GREAT' movie (of course, not for me!!!!). With such a statement, I think its clear about my opinion of the film. Too many criticism and too many blogs have already been written on this 2008 megahit at oscars and I don't want to reiterate all that once again. Only a few words about the film some positive and some negative:

The Positive:

After searching much for what I liked in the film I came out with only few points. One was the exciting musical score that everybody liked. The other one was the excellent use of the flashbacks of Jamaal's life in answering the question at the game show. Technically it was not that great but yes, the concept was appreciable.

The Negative:

For me the biggest setback about the film was the hype about the film. I didn't see anything in the film that deserved such hype. In India, the song "Jai Ho..." was hailed as a song of praise for the Indians but I couldn't see one single thing in the film that could arouse the patriotic feeling amongst us still it did for many amongst us. The image of India is itself not that great in the western world and with this film its not gonna get better anyhow.
A.R. Rahman got an oscar for this film. This is really a matter of pride for us Indians but hasn't he created much better soundtracks for other hindi and tamil films? One of the songs (Ringa Ringa...) is a copy (although tributory) of Laxmikant-Pyarelal's 'Choli ke peechhe kya hai' from Khalnayak. Could he get the award and acclaim that he got for this film had the film was a bollywood production. I don't think so.
I even didn't like the acting of the lead actors. All the children were good at acting but when it came to the older ones it was horrible.
And above all the dance sequence in the end at the railway station was pathetic.

All in all, a much hyped film that could easily be skipped.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

The Best Scene Ever In A Bollywood Film.........

Although I don't like Shahrukh much but Swades is one of his few films that I admire. A great movie about an N.R.I. (the so called Non Returning Indians) who comes to India in search of his childhood caretaker and sees the pity and the "Becharapan" of Indians here and realises what at all, despite being an Indian, he is doing for his nation.
The first 2.5 to 3 minutes of this scene are sufficient to tell the whole story and for me this is the best possible scene in a bollywood movie...................................
Thanks Ashutosh Gowarikar! And Thanks Shahrukh!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

बीते हुए लम्हों की कसक साथ तो होगी

Last few months of my life have been quite different for me as far as my mental status is concerned. There have been lots of mood changes and too much of depression getting in my life and probably they have let me to a state where I don’t feel like doing things which once I loved to. I feel irritated all the time and to add to this irritation, I don’t know the reason behind it. Whether it has to do something to the failures I got in certain competitions in the college or to what I felt during exams or even before that when I was preparing for the exams, I am completely confused but really they have all got too much of depression for me. I was not like this before, depression was not in my dictionary, but yes, the situations were also not like this before.
Too many films, too much of internet, too much of casual timepasses all leading to too much of load just before the exams superadded with the load given by people close to me making me feel for the lost hours. All this led me to a near-breakdown and then came the examinations. They were as horrible as anything can get and only led me further towards my ‘near-breakdown’. The exams were just apt to how I had spent my valuable time in immaterial things on the expenses of my studies. First two papers were like never before. Unlike my reputation of one who helps everybody in exams this time I was seeking for help from everybody I could. I was cheating and only cheating myself. Then came a bit of relief in the last two papers. These were the subjects whom I gave relatively more of the attention and this, to some extent, paid off in the exams (and more so in result as I got honours and gold medal in one of these). The exams were over and a whole new term was before me asking me for better attention this time. The college foundation day celebration were round the corner and had many things for me to participate in. I prepared for all of those and the irony struck me once again as I fell miserably everywhere, be it the quiz in obstetrics or in medicine or in surgery or in cinemas or even the cricket matches. I don’t know whether I ever handled these many defeats together before in my life. To add to the pain was the names of the people who defeated me, I had always seen myself before them in such competitions and over all of these I had my ‘people close to me’ saying me I didn’t prepare sincerely for these. The ‘near-breakdown’ was again a lot nearer.
Then came 25th February. I was awarded the gold medal for Pathology + Microbiology topper in the 2nd MBBS exam. Then came the week of nikki didi’s (my cousin) wedding in Dhanbad which ended with another good news for me with the results of 3rd MBBS where again I got honours in E.N.T. Of course, last few weeks have not been so bad for me as the earlier ones, but “बीते हुए लम्हों की कसक साथ तो होगी”………………..

Monday, December 08, 2008

"UNTITLED"

Its been a long time since i last posted on my blog. I think this statement is all set to become my custom statement as a start to my posts with too many posts already beginning with this. I am not the only one to blame for this irregularity, the large chunk has to go to the pathetic condition of broadband connection in my city. The condition is really pathetic and to add to it, this is further receding to worse.
Anyways, these days I am busy studying for my exams scheduled to commence 1 week hence. The study is more of a compensation for the lost hours which I, quite comfortably, spent on doing things at internet, blogging being noteworthy and many others being 'un-noteworthy".
I can't really say from when I will be able to regularise myself though I hope it won't take a long time..............

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Adorable Awesome Amitabh


This blog was pending for some time now since I watched Rituparno Ghosh's latest experiment in story-telling 'The Last Lear'. This blog was meant mainly for the movie but with the recent advances leading Amitabh to the hospital and mourning his death today for a few minutes (of course a rumour), has led me to dedicate the blog to Amitabh Bachchan, whose acting incidentally happens to be the only thing in the movie to write about.
The Movie is based on a drama 'Ajker Shahjahan' by Utpal Dutt. It is about a stage artist, Harry, who lives Shakespere in every moment of his life. Due to some personal reasons he has already given up the stage and also has a great distaste for cinema. One day he meets Siddharth, a movie director much like the same in characteristics as himself. Siddharth manages to persuade him to do the lead role in his upcoming film. It was an unusual experience for Harry to watch a film being made and when asked by a journalist about the climax scene being done by a body double, he decides, against all odds, to do the life-threatening scene himself. He suffers the dread of trauma and ends up with a coma. The film is scheduled to be released on Diwali night besides the lead actor sleeping in coma. This is somewhat indigestible to Harry's partner Vandana. Moreover, Siddharth, the director, never even visited Harry's home after the accident to see him.
This is almost the whole about the story of the film which I think fails to connect with the masses and there are too many reasons for that. There is too much of Shakespere in the film and I don't really understand why. I have not read Shakespere's tragedy of King Lear but the wikipedia article on that led me to conclude that there was nothing in the film which could be connected to that story except for the fact that Harry wanted to enact King Lear once on stage but he couldn't do that. Maybe, Rituparno wanted to show the role of Harry as the circus clown in Siddharth's film as like King Lear but even that role didn't look like one; only the element of tragedy was similar. The personal rift of Preity Zinta (Harry's co-star in the film) with her husband and that between Divya Dutta (Harry's nurse) with her boyfriend has simply nothing to do with the story and it seems that it was done only to add some feminism to the movie, not understandable why.
Rituparno's projection as a director of different-looking films doesn't suffer much here. His style of film making truely comes out in this film with the ponderous speed and too much of the unnecessary melodrama in the film. Making a different film is not equivalent to making a good film and this is what Rituparno should understand sooner or later. The whole film is made in English and too much of shooting us done indoors (typical of Rituparno).
Amitabh as Harry (Harish Mishra) is adorably great and has done a job according to his capabilities after much time. Shefali as Vandana is good, Divya Dutta as Harry's nurse is wasted and useless. Arjun Rampal, as Siddhrth shocks me with his acting. I think its his best job till now in bollywood. Other actors are also good in their roles.
At last, Amitabh job is the only thing for which the film can be seen otherwise its better to skip it.

Monday, October 13, 2008

A Wednesday


A Wednesday is a recent film written and directed by Neeraj Pandey. The promo of the film showed yet again a bomb-threatened Mumbai leading you to establish an idea about the film as yet another movie based upon terrorism and terrorists. With the recent upsurge of terrorism in our part of world i.e. south-east Asia, we have in past few years seen so many of these terrorist movies that now I am getting confused about which film was that one or the other one. Watching this film was again not a different feeling till 77 minutes (out of total 94 minutes of movie) where from the movie takes a strange turn and the whole context of the story changes. Though I have (not in many movies) seen common man being dragged into some evil job or him taking on the evil men of the society especially after one of his kin suffers the terrorism, this movie here is something different.
It is about a “stupid common man”, as the character introduces himself, who wants to “clean his house”. The house is his country and what he wants to clean off is terrorism. He is not some superman or some he-man who will shave off every evil from the society but only tries to show a path to awaken the sleeping common people. He only gives you a start on which a splendid end can be phrased. This is in short what the director wants to tell which I don’t agree with and I would come on that later in this blog.
The story starts with the voice of Anupam Kher playing Prakash Rathore, commissioner of police, Mumbai who before his retirement (scheduled to be on the next day) is recalling one of the cases he handled. The case occurred on a Wednesday when a man (Naseeruddin Shah) calls him and says that he has planted several bombs all over the city and wants four of dreadly terrorists out of imprisonment. For the purpose of authenticity he also plants a bomb in a police station just in front of the police headquarters. He has a completely worked out plan of action for this and is unreachable. Finally he gets the terrorists out of the prison and with a full proof-plan, gets them to a runway of an air-base. There he gets those terrorists killed and this is the twist in the tale. After this he reveals himself and then follows an emphatic speech about the common man and his sufferings; the same age old speech of bollywood on this topic is repeated.
The screenplay is really fantastic and keeps you bound all throughout. The director manages to keep the suspense of the film till the very end and really gives you a real shock with the twist; it is superbly great, truly uncommon in bollywood movies are such a fabulous twist. The performances are of the highest order. Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah are both, as usual, brilliant. Anupam portrays the commissioner with all its essence and who can be better than Naseer in showcasing a common man; really commendable performances. Jimmy Shergil and others are good in their little cameos.
Now coming back to the topic which I left earlier, it is a good idea to show in a film about common man doing all this. But is it possible practically? I heard somebody telling that this film should be shown to as many Indians as possible, even if only 1 lakh of them manage to wake up, it will bring an end to 4 lakhs terrorists. Really a nice idea!!! But is it authentic outside the filmy world? I don’t think so. Yes, I agree to the point that what is the need to keep such terrorists alive when you know they have taken hundreds of innocent lives, yes I agree to this. But I don’t agree to the point that common people should take law in their hands to do such a thing. Police is there to do that and let it do its own job and let us support them. When an encounter occurs many of us stand against it saying it brutal and inhumane. There I think, we should be supporting our police and yes I firmly believe our police to be given more of the power to deal with all this.
Final word for the film, really “pathbreaking” rather “pathfinding”!!!

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Kidnap


It's been a long time since I have been out of blogging. Was only busy doing the routine studies compensating for my time that I gave to blogging and internet in the past few months. Anyways, as usual, with studies there are some movies that I saw recently and there are some which I saw earlier and could not write about but with these recent movies they inadvertently came to my mind and I think this will be the right time to write about these.
In this blog I want to focus mainly on ‘Kidnap’ and ‘Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na’ rather I should say on Imraan Khan. Kidnap is the most recent movie I saw and Imraan’s second appearance on the screen after Jaane Tu…….. Both these films have nothing in common except the name of Imraan Khan; even for him, its only the name that is common, the role is completely different, not even a single shade is common.
Kidnap a Sanjay Gadhvi film starring Imraan, Minisha Lamba and Sanjay Dutt is a suspense thriller that presents Imraan in a grey shade just opposite to the chocolaty Imraan in Jaane tu…. It is a story about revenge that Imraan takes from Sanjay Dutt for his injail-ruined childhood. To save his friend’s life the adolescent Imraan steals Sanjay’s car with his daughter only to return it after his friend is saved. He only manages to have a head-on accident with the car ramming into a tree with Sanjay’s daughter severely injured. Sanjay, with his approach, manages to have a seven year imprisonment for the boy for attempting to steal his car and abducting his daughter. After 15 years Imraan comes back and abducts Sanjay’s daughter (Minisha) in reality and wants Sanjay to feel sorry for what he did years ago. This is the storyline of the film in short. The credits of the film were presented in the very beginning with the whole story of child Imraan going to jail and feeling the pity of it with the help of cartoon sketches. Film started with introduction of Minisha with a song and soon after her abduction when she goes to swimming alone at a manless beach just after a spat with her mother. Imraan makes Sanjay follow his instructions on phone and provides him with clues to catch him after every instruction is correctly followed. Finally, Sanjay is able to crack the clues and then the whole story of 15 years run in flashback in a quite short time. While watching the film many a times I felt it to be similar with the story of ‘Zinda’ another of Sanjay starrer thriller. The story and the script has nothing much new to present, direction is disappointing, music avoidable, casting pathetic, and the performances more so.
Vidya Malvade (the Chak De goalkeeper) plays Minisha’s mother. Can anybody tell me from which angle does she look like Minisha’s mother? There were scenes were minisha looked like her mother or at best she looked like her elder sister. Anyway, moving on with the cast, Imraan, I think suits well in chocolaty roles. He is too cute for doing this role; nonetheless his performance is quite powerful and this only is his looks that he misfits in this role for. Sanjay Dutt, I feel, is doing the right job, at 50+ now, by doing roles of father of the heroine and in the meantime, doing the role of hero as well. I think the 45+ Khans of the industry should really think over this.
Now the performances, I am really impressed by Sanjay’s energy (and this energy is the only thing I am impressed with in Sanjay's acting in this film) that he has put in this film at an age of well over 50. Vidya is pathetic (I am sorry for my instant vocabulary, I couldn’t get a better rather worse word to describe her here). Imraan is good and Minisha does nothing. All in all, Kidnap is a film to watch only when you think you have too much of money to waste.
Few words for ‘Jaane TU… Ya Jaane Na’, a Aamir Khan produced film introducing his nephew Imraan. I had a lot of expectations from the film with Aamir (my favourite actor) producing the film. I thought it to be another of the perfect work from the Mr. Perfectionist. Disappointingly, the film was only OK maybe due to the high expectations that were from the film with Aamir’s name connected to it. Nevertheless, it had many positives also. Abbas Tyrewala as the director is good and better as the lyricist. His dialogues in Munnabhai M.B.B.S are loved by one and all and here he manages to bring the same magic with the hunky-funky lyrics on the even more hunkier-funkier music by A.R. Rahman. The songs are really nice and a bit new in flavor although many of them are meaningless. Anyway, Imraan impressed ne and all with his performance and another newcomer from south Jelenia Desouza also looked quite fresh. Naseruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak-Shah are surprisingly disappointing in their short cameos probably because they were not needed in the film. So where Sohail and Arbaaz Khan, who always were able to bring headaches on. The story was very simple, the same old ‘Ek larka aur ek larki sirf achhche dost nahi ho sakte’. Nevertheless, the film was OK at least once watchable.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Rock On!!!

Last few weeks have been a bit hard for us in Bihar. I had always read in a general knowledge book about river ‘Kosi’ being called the sorrow of Bihar. It was the name given to the river in the past when it really devastated the north-eastern part of Bihar many a times. Anyway it was in the pages of history only and with dams made over it in my life of over 20 years I had never heard of a flood being caused by ‘Kosi’. This year Bihar is again witnessing the fury of its sorrow. Over lakhs of people have lost their homes, the number of them who lost their lives is not yet known, over lakhs hectares of agricultural land is submerged in the water and the fury doesn’t end here only. It would be remembered for much time to come. Anyways, the spirit of life is still there and I am sure we will get over it and move on. Indeed, the show must go on!!!!!

Now, this blog is about the recent bollywood flick Rock On directed by Abhishek Kapoor and produced by Farhaan Akhtar. It is a movie about four friends and their rock band ‘Magik’. Of late, we have seen some bollywood movies made on the theme of music and starhood in music. Lucky Ali’s ‘Sur’, Amitabh’s ‘Abhimaan’ and one movie starring Zakir hussain and Shabana Azmi, whose name(probably ‘Sur’ again), I am sorry, I can’t recall presently, are among some of them. All these movies have music, starhood and the ill-effects of this starhood in common. Rock On is again a similar movie but has a completely different flavour. Here, first up, we have Rock, an altogether unknown genre of music at least in bollywood. Secondly, we have a musical band that I don’t think is an Indian curry. We have witnessed some bands in India but they have disappeared as quickly as they came up. Another kind of similarity can be brought up about this film with Farhaan’s debut as director and producer ‘Dil Chahta Hai’. Though, these are completely different films but the ego that breaks the friends in this film is something similar to what happened to the characters in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’.
Rock On is a story about a rock band of four friends, Aditya, the lead singer (Farhaan Akhtar); Joe, with the guitar (Arjun Rampal); Killer Drummer alias KD, the drummer (Purab Kohli) and Rob, on the keyboard (Luke Kenny). In their college days they had maintained a band and reached to the verge of being stars but at the crucial time, the ego factor came in and what followed was a miserable spat that broke the band. After ten years, they are all at different paths leading their own lives without even meeting each other. Aditya works as a manager in a firm and is married to Sakshi (Prachi Desai); KD is involved in his father’s jewellery business; Rob continues his passion for music and works for a music director (played by Anu Malik); and Joe having the most miserable lives of all with his wife, mother and a son managing his family fish business with his wife. Aditya has kept his past of a band leader a secret from his wife but somehow she comes to know about it and with her efforts the band members meet again and once again perform together. There are some twists in the tale also that move the story on. Rob’s brain tumour, Joe’s wife’s Villainship to the band and some others. These twists come near the end of the movie when they are preparing for a concert. Their decision of performing in the concert is mainly for Rob who, they discover, has not much time left. On the other hand, Joe’s wife is reluctant to let him perform with ‘Magik’ again and wants him to join a job at a cruise the same day the concert was scheduled. Nevertheless, Magik performs once again after 10 years and creates the same magic.
The movie starts with a stage performance by the band on the street of Mumbai. After that their present day lives are shown and the whole story is then told as a mix of present and the flashbacks. The direction is really nice. The flashbacks are used really nicely and the way they are used to carry forward the story is something that I really loved. Farhaan as the rock star has really stunned me. His acting, to me, is fabulous especially when he has performed on the stage with the mike. He really looked a rock star. What stunned me more about him is his singing in the film. All his songs in the film are sung by himself and man! He has really done a great job there. Arjun Rampal, as usual, is emotionless and again fails to impress me. Luke Kenny and Purab Kohli have fared quite well with their job. Prachi Desai makes her debut in bollywood after showing her talent in the small screen. She has looked cute and beautiful and did full justice to her role although a short one. The best thing about the movie is Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s composition. The music really gives you a feel of rock and you can’t stop your feet moving with the beats of the songs. The last song the ‘magnum opus’ is really fantastic. The music is really fabulous, something new (although there have been such hindi songs earlier also but a whole movie dedicated to such music is something new) for our ears, “Rock in Hindi”.
In parts one can feel the story to be a bit on the slower side, nonetheless, the film is really good, if not ‘must watch’, it is more than ‘watchable’, somewhere in between these two grades.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Johnny Gaddar

In my last post I mentioned about watching some movies and this Sriram Raghavan written and directed crime thriller ‘Johnny Gaddar’ is one of them. My elder brother Alok recommended me this movie with a positive review which is quite strange from him especially for a new bollywood movie. I got to watch the movie only recently and am really overwhelmed by it and truly think it deserves the appreciation that it got from him.

This is a crime thriller story about a gang of five criminals who are into a big deal that involves 2.5 crore rupees. They have always been partners in any deal or crime that they have committed but this time with this much of money involved, one of them has another idea about the deal. He is the traitor in the gang, ‘the Johnny Gaddar’, who plans to get hold of the money and elope with her girlfriend. In the process, he unintentionally kills one of his friends and then starts a series of murders to conceal his betrayal. The series of murder involves all his partners and ends with his own.

The story is as simple as this but the twists and turns that come in the movie at regular intervals doesn’t leave it that a simple one. Every single time when the ‘Gaddar’ feels that all the hurdles are gone, a new thrill comes in and twists the whole story again. I think that these twists and turns in a thriller movie are the things that make it great and only these things when used a bit injudiciously or hazily can make it thoroughly complicated. Well! In this case this is the beautifully knitted story by Sriram Raghavan that makes the movie so clear yet so thrilling. Although there are a lot of things about the movie that gives it a place among the best, the presentation of the story is the best thing about the movie as far as my view is concerned. Next to it among the goods about the movie comes the freshness of the theme in the Indian film industry. How many times we get a movie wherein we are completely confused whether the protagonist in the film is the hero or a villain. The character of Vikram, the ‘gaddar’, played beautifully by Neil Nitin Mukesh is a character for which one is not sure whether to keep sympathy or to curse him. Not many times in Hindi movies we get such a situation. This is not the only thing fresh about the movie. Not in many Hindi movies we have all the lead characters dead in the end. There have been movies like ‘Deewar’, ‘Sholay’ or ‘Fanaa’ where we have the hero dead in the end but ‘Kaante’ is the movie that, I think, comes the nearest to this one in this regard (In fact, these two movies have a lot of things in common, anyways). Presenting such a story to the Indian audience really needs courage. Hats off!!!

Another fresh thing in the movie was Neil Nitin Mukesh in the title role. He has looked fresh, charming, handsome and elegant and above all has performed with even more elegance. He is really promising and presently, I think, the best starlet in the industry (although, of course, his father Nitin Mukesh was not a star singer, his grandfather Mukesh was a real superstar as a singer). Along with Neil, other actors have also given fine performances. Dharmendra is back again with one more inning in the films. I really don’t know how many comebacks he is going to make in this industry. Zakir Hussain again is brilliant and so is Vinay Pathak in a completely different kind of a role. He is always known for his roles as comedian in ‘Bheja Fry’, ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’, ‘Manorama Six Feet under’ and many more but this time he is completely different. Ashwini Kalsekar as Vinay’s wife is, as others, awesome.

Sriram’s story and direction, as mentioned earlier, is outstanding. He never intended to make it a suspense drama and does not keep it hidden from the audience about the traitor yet he manages to put so much of suspense and thrill in the film, really commendable!!!!!!! He has dedicated this film, as given in the opening credits, to the thriller maestros Vijay Anand and James Hadley Chase. I have not read Chase yet, so can’t say much on him. As for Vijay Anand, I didn’t know before this that he is treated as a thriller maestro. I remember him for ‘Haqeeqat’ and ‘Kora Kaaghaz’ and in both these cases there was nothing like thriller. Besides, I also remember him for his detective teleserial ‘Tahqeeqat’ that was aired on Doordarshan some 12-15 years ago in which he acted as Sam DeSilva, the detective. Here, this was a bit nearer to be called a thriller; still, I can’t figure anything else out of him that can give me an impression of him as a thriller maestro. That may be my lack of knowledge and nothing else. So, thanks in a sense to the director for improving my knowledge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One more thing about the opening credits that I liked was the flavor of the 70s commercial Amitabh hits that comes up in it. The way the names are presented and the background score in the credits reminds me a lot about the great hits of the 70s. The use of the plot of ‘Parwaana’ in the film or the extraction of the title from another thriller ‘Johnny Mera Naam’ is also awesome.

All in all a fresh movie with a lot of thrill in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This Wikipedia article on the film has a mistake regarding the music director of the film. According to it, Vishal-Shekhar duo is the music composer but in reality the music I composed by the trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy………………….